


Behind Amber Eyes

by Untherius



Series: Blood of Ages [1]
Category: Jurassic Park (Movies)
Genre: Animal Death, F/M, Gen, Interspecies Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:02:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Untherius/pseuds/Untherius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A velociraptor attack shows Robert Muldoon that there is more to life than blood...and more to blood than life.  The resultant, startling revelation about himself and the velociraptors leads to a new life of coexistance between their races and an unprecedented mingling of life and blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Robert Muldoon let the world contract until only he and the velociraptor remained. He was one with his weapon, one with his quarry, both hunter and hunted. He reveled in it. Breathe in...hold...breathe out. His finger pressed against the trigger. Soon he would will his bullet toward its target.

A rustle caught his attention, situational awareness abruptly dilating his world. He glanced left. A pair of amber, reptilian eyes stared back at him, unblinking, studying him.

“Clever girl,” he said softly.

He twisted, bringing his weapon to bear on the new threat. But the raptor was faster, exploding through the foliage in a burst of leaves and claws. Robert barely had time to raise his arm, an instinctive gesture he knew to be futile. Nearly three hundred pounds of homicidal fury slammed into him, driving him to the ground, its jaws closing around his forearm. The pain was intense. He screamed. A moment later, the raptor let go.

Robert continued screaming. He flailed, fueled by adrenaline, striking wildly at the leg that held him down. At least he'd go out fighting, a fitting end for a man like himself, one that he hoped would be obvious, one that would be relayed to his family. And maybe, just maybe, through their sorrow they'd be proud of that end.

* * *

Sholtha waited patiently. The humans were smart, but they moved so noisily, she could have hunted them in the pouring rain with her eyes closed. There were two of them, a man and a woman. The woman was inconsequential, or perhaps a meal for later. The man, on the other hand, was another matter entirely. She'd known him for some time and he certainly knew her. That, among other things, made him highly dangerous. But there was something else about him, something that went beyond his prowess as a fellow hunter. Whatever it was, she couldn't quite rest a claw on it.

Not that humans weren't inherently dangerous anyway. True, by their strange arts had they roused her and her sisteren from whatever strange slumber had gripped them for so long. Or so she'd gathered. Still, her kind were a breath away from falling back into the deep sleep from which they'd so recently awakened, a sleep to which she did not care to return. That meant eliminating the humans...with extreme prejudice.

She thrust her snout through the foliage, coming face-to-face with the male human. Muldoon, he was called.

“Clever girl,” he said.

She certainly hoped so. She'd have been quite put out had he called her a stupid bitch or somesuch other drivel. Still, victory was life.

She sprang from her place, all limbs, claws, teeth, and screeching. After all, what was the point of possessing so much unbridled aggression if one didn't use it?

She collided with Muldoon, her feet driving him to the ground. He raised an arm in a futile defensive attempt. She bit into it. Blood welled out of man-flesh, filling her mouth with its sweet aroma.

Images suddenly flooded through her mind, memories she knew to be someone else's, but alarmingly counterpoint to her own. She knew it the same way she'd come to know everything else since awakening from the Slumber. Memories of another, of the one who had, along with herself, once carried the salvation of her race.

Sholtha let go and peered at Muldoon as he writhed and screamed beneath her foot. She blinked. That...that shouldn't be possible! She tilted her head back and bellowed the Gathering Call. Then she returned her attention to Muldoon and waited, enduring the beating against her legs.

She didn't have to wait long. Hilthri bounded up almost immediately, followed a couple of minutes later by Leriso. The other two stood looking back and forth from Sholtha to Muldoon.

“I...do not understand,” said Leriso at last.

“We have a problem,” said Sholtha.

“What sort of problem?” asked Hilthri.

“Things have become substantially more complicated,” said Sholtha. “This human...” She nodded to Muldoon. “...bears a Khantushakal soul. But not just any Khantushakal soul, the soul of Thelen.”

Leriso and Hilthri looked at each other, then back at Sholtha. “How...how do you know this?” asked Hilthri.

“I have long suspected such, as you well know. We have so much in common with the humans. And with this one in particular. I have sensed...something different about him, something that sets him apart from the others. Until I bit into him, I was unsure. But the Blood-Memory confirms it.”

“But we have fed on humans before,” said Leriso. “Not many, of course, but...perhaps you are mistaken?”

“Blasphemy!” snapped Sholtha. “The Blood-Memory is beyond reproof. It cannot be questioned.”

“A thousand apologies, Ard-Righa. I meant no offense. It is just that...it is difficult to accept.”

“Leriso has a point,” said Hilthri. “Why would the Egg-Mother allow this?”

Sholtha's eyes narrowed. Such questioning should have bordered on heresy. Yet there was still so much she did not know about, well, everything. Perhaps questions were the only keys to certain answers. For there was no one to help guide her intellect. No, she and her sisteren were relegated to seeking their knowledge by whatever means necessary. And, like it or not, it was a valid question.

“I do not know,” she said. “What is clear is that Thelen and I failed in our charge to assure the perpetuation or our race. We have apparently been given a chance to redeem ourselves. Though why the Egg-Mother chose this is much less clear.

“Perhaps it is because the humans now rule the world. Because humans rule, and because they are so powerful, we and others in our situation require an intercessor. Perhaps the Egg-Mother foresaw this and knew that only in human form could such an intercessor go before them. Perhaps that is why She allowed Thelen to be reborn as a human.

“Follow the path and it will lead you true. The fact remains that in this human resides the soul of Thelen, though I do not believe he is yet aware of it. And where there is one, there may be others. No Khantushak has ever murdered another. It is among our most sacred laws. We cannot continue to hunt them.”

“Very well,” said Hilthri. “But we do not have to like it.”

“I would not expect it of you. For I do not like it either.”

“And I suppose,” said Leriso, “that you would next suggest we should also forgo playing with our food?”

“How absurd,” said Sholtha. “Of course we should play with our food. We just must not kill the humans.”

“Forgive me, Ard-Righa,” said Leriso, “but do the humans not fear us? Will they not be aggressive toward us? Will they not use their tools of destruction against us?”

“Fair questions. That is why we must make peace with them. And because they tend to seek vengeance even more tenaciously than we do.”

“But...how?”

“We must begin with Thelen here.” Sholtha looked down at Muldoon. He had stopped fighting. What Sholtha recognized as a grimace of pain lay across his face. He lay mostly still, his eyes wide and breathing shallow. Blood coated his left forearm.

“If you're going to eat me,” he all but whispered through clenched teeth, “get on with it.”

Sholtha gazed into his eyes. So human, yet still she could see the Khantushakal presence behind them. “We must not allow him to die. Quickly! Find one of the other humans, one who knows how to heal. Meet me in their Hall of Bones.”

“How will you move him there? He is nearly as large as you without your tail.”

“I will drag him if I must. Now, go!”

The other two nodded assent, wheeled around and lit out in the indicated direction. Sholtha looked back at Muldoon. “Soon, alskling. Soon, you will remember who you are. You were always so strong when I knew you of old. Show me that such strength remains. Then we will be together once more.” She bent down, flipped him over, caught him beneath the arm pits, and began to drag.


	2. Chapter 2

Alexis Murphy pressed herself up against a work table. The cold stainless steel sucked her body heat through her shirt as though she weren't wearing it at all. But she was barely aware of that. Her heart pounded beneath her breast like an alien parasite trying to get out. Tim sat rigidly next to her, neither of them trying to breathe. But their panic demanded air—a _lot_ of air!

She could hear the pair of velociraptors that hunted them. Their claws clicked on the hard flooring. They called back and forth in complex-sounding vocalizations. And they were getting closer!

Go away...go away...go _away_! She shoved the thought out as hard as she could. She didn't really think it would have any effect, but anything was better than becoming a meat-asaurus' chew toy.

She glanced at her brother, who looked back at her with the same wild-eyed terror she felt gripping her own heart. She nodded, gathered her feet under her and moved. Adrenaline fueled a jack-rabbit start. Behind her, she heard Tim sprint in the other direction. Maybe they could confuse the raptors long enough to get away, or at least come up with some other plan.

She heard a scream. Oh, no! She spun around, tripped over her own foot, and crashed to the floor. The image of her brother in the grip of a raptor seemed seared onto the backs of her eyeballs. She scrambled up and felt a pair of powerful arms—powerful _scaly_ arms—wrap around her and pick her up off the floor.

Alexis let out a shrill scream that could have curdled milk. She kicked and flailed violently, but the arms held her firmly against a warm repto-avian body. She struggled wildly as the animal carried her back across the kitchen, through its double-swinging door, and down who knew where. Every so often, she could hear her brother scream. Why wasn't she being ripped apart? What did the raptors want? Were they to be fed fresh to a clutch of hatchlings?

Time blurred by. Eventually, the beast released her and she sprawled onto the floor. She rolled over and scrambled into a sitting position. Where was she? She bumped up against something soft and glanced over. Tim!  


She hugged her brother and just a little of her fear left her. They were both still alive and more or less whole, for now anyway. Tim pointed.  


All three velociraptors hovered nearby. Two of them paced back and forth, exchanging more complex vocalizations between themselves and the third. The larger of the three peered at her and her brother. Then it pointed at something to her left. She looked over at the prostrate form of Mr. Muldoon. He was breathing, but unconscious, and his left arm was covered in blood. It lay across his stomach, leaking into his clothing.

She looked from him to the raptor, back to him, then back to the raptor. She huddled closer to Tim, putting herself between him and the dinosaur, her breathing still rapid. “They're gonna eat us. They're gonna eat us. They're gonna eat us,” she stammered. Her brother's equally panicked breathing only amplified her own terror. “We're gonna die. We're gonna die. We're gonna...”

“ _Silence!_ ” roared the raptor.

Alexis' brain ground to a screeching halt. Had the animal just...talked? Surely she was hallucinating. She'd never been so scared in her entire life and, should she miraculously live, she was certain she'd never again be afraid of anything, ever. The fear must have been playing tricks on her mind.

The raptor jabbed a clawed finger toward Muldoon. “Heal hin,” it said.

She just stared.

The animal lowered its head and inched closer to her. “Understand?” it asked.

Still she stared.

One of the others vocalized something and the large raptor responded in kind.

Then it loomed in toward her, its snout just inches from her face. It poked a claw at her chest, but only hard enough for her to feel the point prick at her sternum. She could feel her heart hammering behind it. “Heal hin. Isth he dies, you die.” The raptor glared at her for several seconds, then snorted and abruptly pulled back. It vocalized with the others, then wheeled back around to glare at her again. It snorted. “Do...you...understand...ne?”

Alexis nodded. She didn't know how, but the dinosaur was talking, actually talking!

* * *

Sholtha paced back and forth in the humans' Hall of Bones. She didn't know if they called it that, but she didn't really care. All that mattered was that Thelen's life was slipping away...again...and the humans, of which there were only a few left on the island, knew how to help. She could hear her sisteren approach, the frantic screams of the humans they carried echoing down the corridor.

Soon, they emerged and the two smaller Khantushakae dropped two small humans unceremoniously next to Thelen's unconscious form, which she'd lain carefully on the floor. She'd even found something soft to support his head. “Be careful with them!” she growled.

“Apologies, Ard-Righa,” said Hilthri.

“They are...slippery,” said Leriso. “Deceptively so.”

Sholtha grunted acknowledgment and turned her attention to the small humans. They huddled next to each other, their wide eyes staring up at her, their small bodies trembling in abject fear. She couldn't blame them, not after the way she and her sisteren had behaved as of late. But there would be time for that later. She pointed at Thelen.

The girl looked over, then looked back.

“Do you think they understand what we want?” asked Hilthri.

“I am unsure,” said Sholtha.

“We have heard enough of their language,” said Leriso, “and we understand it at least. Can we speak to them in it?”

“We...have not tried.” She returned her attention to the humans.

The girl hugged the boy, possibly her brother, even tighter, pushing him slightly behind her. It was no doubt a protective gesture. “They're gonna eat us. They're gonna eat us. They're gonna eat us,” she stammered. “We're gonna die. We're gonna die. We're gonna...”

There wasn't time for such nonsense. “ _Silence!_ ” she roared, using the humans' language. She jabbed a clawed finger toward Thelen. “Heal hin,” she said.

The girl just stared.

Perhaps she was having trouble. There were certain sounds Sholtha was unsure she was capable of pronouncing. Close would have to be close enough. She lowered her head and inched closer to the girl. “Understand?” she asked.

Still she stared.

“I do not think this is working,” said Hilthri.

“It _has_ to work,” replied Sholtha. She lowered her head and inched even closer until she was nose-to-nose with the girl. She pressed a claw against the girl's sternum. It vibrated with the heartbeat behind it. “Heal hin. Isth he dies, you die.” She tried unsuccessfully to keep the edge out of her voice.

She snorted, then pulled back and wheeled around.

“Are you sure she understands, Ard-Righa?” asked Leriso.

“Then I will ask.” Sholtha turned back to the human girl and spoke again, more slowly. “Do...you...understand...ne?”

The girl nodded.

“Good. Now, do it!”

“I...I don't know how.”

Sholtha growled. That did not bode well. But at least they were making something resembling progress. “Then who does?”

“I...dunno. Doctor Grant? Doctor Sattler?”

The young male spoke up. “I...uh...think Mister Muldoon needs blood.”

The girl turned her head. “What are you doing?” she said through clenched teeth.

“They're gonna kill us if we don't help,” he responded in kind.

Sholtha ignored them. Instead, she stepped over to Thelen. He looked so peaceful. Yet she knew that, beneath his exterior calm, he endured incredible pain—pain she had inflicted upon him. Had she only known! He had finally been reunited with her after countless turns of the world, only to possibly die and by her own hand. It broke her heart.

She bent her head down and pressed her forehead gently against his. “Alskling,” she said in her own language, “if I could give my life, my blood, for yours, I would do it gladly.”

She turned aside, then punctured her own wrist. As she withdrew her claw, blood welled up from the wound. She let it slowly dribble down her finger and bead up at the tip of a claw. She reached down and found one of the holes she'd earlier made in his arm.

The blood there was dried and caked, but some of it still glistened with a light sheen. She poked her claw into one of his wounds. Blood welled up from it, mingling with hers.

The girl spoke. “What...what are you doing?”

Sholtha ignored her. She let her blood slowly dribble down and into Thelen's arm. She didn't know if it would have any effect, but it had to be better than nothing. She bent her head again and let tears well up into her eyes. They trickled down her snout and dripped onto his arm, mingling with the blood.

The boy spoke. “I...um...don't think that's gonna work.”

That caught her attention. She blinked hard, squeezing the tears away, and glanced at the boy. She turned back to Thelen and pressed her wounded wrist against the newly reopened hole in his arm.

“Um...not that, either,” said the boy.

Sholtha peered at the boy. “Ghat do you nean?”

“Well...” The boy hesitated.

“Do you know how to helt, or do you not?” Sholtha demanded.

“Uh...no. It's just...I've seen it done and...and that's not it.”

“Um...Timmy?” said the girl. “You realize you're talking to a dinosaur, right?”

The boy, apparently called Timmy, nodded. “Yeah. Pretty cool, huh?”

The girl shook her head slightly. “Um...”

Footsteps from somewhere out of sight interrupted them. She signaled her sisteren to take up ambush positions while she herself crouched down, watching the direction of the sound.

She didn't have to wait long. Two adult humans, a male and a female, rounded a corner, rushing into the room.

“Lex! Tim!” called the man. “Good, we have to...agh!” He and the woman skidded to a stop.

Sholtha watched as her two sisteren flanked the humans. “Exercise extreme caution!” she called to them in their language and rising from her crouch. “The man carries one of their Death-Givers!”

Hilthri and Leriso checked their advance slightly and snorted. The two adult humans froze, their eyes glancing from one of the room's other occupants to the next. They were surrounded and they knew it. The man must also have known that he would only have time to unleash his tool on one of his adversaries. Hopefully, he would also realize that doing so would result quickly in his own death.

Besides, Sholtha needed the humans to help Thelen. Unless she missed her guess, they did not want him to die any more than she did. Humans were protective of their own. Which meant the two adults would do everything in their power to rescue both Thelen and the younglings. Any aggression would jeopardize everything.

The pair tentatively herded the humans toward her. Things rested on the tip of a claw. Humans were unpredictable. That was one of the things that made them so dangerous. The ones before her were afraid and fear made humans highly prone to irrational behavior. Yet it could also galvanize them into action. All other things being equal, and despite their physical inferiority, they were magnificent creatures. Perhaps she would not mind that Thelen had been reborn into a human body.

She glanced at the two younglings. The girl, Lex, was still breathing rapidly, a symptom of fear.

Tim blurted, “They can talk!”

The adults froze. A quizzical expression crossed the woman's face. The man looked sternly at each Khantushaka. “They can...vocalize...but...”

“They can talk!” echoed Lex. “And they want us to help Mister Muldoon. They're gonna kill us if we don't! I don't wanna die...I don't wanna...”

“You're not,” said the man slowly, “gonna die. Just...stay there. We're coming to you.”

Sholtha groaned, but waited the tedious moments while the others crossed the room. The man hugged the children and the woman looked at Thelen.

“What do you mean they can talk?” said the man.

Sholtha snorted. “You,” she said to the woman. “Can you helt hin?”

Both adults looked sharply at Sholtha.

“See?” said Tim. “Told ya.”

“Wh...what?” said the female.

Sholtha's eyes narrowed. “Can...you...helt...hin?” she repeated more slowly.

“Well...I...maybe.”

“Yes or no?”

“Yes. But I need a few things.”

Sholtha lowered her head toward the female and growled. “Do it!”

“Look,” said the male, “we don't want him to die. You don't want him to die. But if we're going to save him, you have to let us do it our way.”

Sholtha peered at the male.

“They are tricksey, Ard-Righa,” said Hilthri in her language.

“Indeed,” said Sholtha in kind. “Yet we do not have much choice. Humans are often willing to sacrifice much to help one of their own. I do not think they will abandon Thelen.” Then in English, “Zthery ghell. Dut the younglingi stay here.”

The woman slowly took an object that hung from her waist. Sholtha glared. “This,” said the female, “lets us talk to people over long distances. I want to use it to ask for some things I'll need to help him.”

Sholtha considered that for a moment, then nodded. “Troceed.”

The female pushed a button. “Hammond?” she said.

A male voice came from the little box. “Go ahead,” it said.

“We're in the visitor center lobby. We've found Muldoon...and your grandchildren. But we have a problem...”


	3. Chapter 3

Robert Muldoon gazed out upon a sea of faces. They were all different. Some of them belonged to the crowd of humans gathered nervously near the edge of a large clearing. Most of the others were ones he recognized either from his homeland, or that he'd learned during his long journey. None of them were human, but they all waited at the edge of a woodland.

Some of them eyed the humans. Their young exchanged good-byes, then trickled away toward him. Robert felt the vibrations of their footfalls on the wooden planks barely a few hand-spans below his own eye level.

He looked at the female to his right. He'd only met her a few months before. They'd been introduced by their parents the day they'd been fledged. He liked her. Which was a good thing. According to his mother, the female beside him, named Sholtha, was to be mother to his children once they'd reached maturity. It was something he really only understood in the abstract.

What he did understand was that the Egg-Mother had chosen him and Sholtha to repopulate their kind. No one had told him much more than that. The large, human-built structure behind him was to be a refuge from...something. He really wished the adults had told him more. But all they'd really said was that he and Sholtha were supposed to go there. Maybe they didn't know either. Apparently, the Egg-Mother was prone to ambiguity. Or so he'd gathered. How was he supposed to teach his own younglingi things he didn't even know himself? Yet the adults had assured him that the Blood-Memory would form a foundation and that he and Sholtha were smart enough to figure out the rest on their own.

Robert let out a soft growl.

“Thelen?” said Sholtha. “Is something wrong?”

“I...I do not know,” he answered. He barely noticed that she'd called him by that name. “All of this...”

“It frightens you?” she asked.

“Well...yes. It does.”

He felt her squeeze his hand. He looked over at her. Somehow, looking into her amber eyes calmed him. The green-grey skin of her snout blended well with her steel-blue feathers. She really was beautiful.

“It frightens me, as well,” she said.

He squeezed her hand back. “Then we will be afraid together,” he said.

“You know what they say about fear.”

He nodded. “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I understand all that...I think. Yet still we are afraid.”

“We face the unknown. And that is always fraught with fear-making. We must not allow our fear to consume us.”

He nodded in acknowledgement, then looked past her at the stream of youngling animals filing up the ramp and into the humans' whatever-it-was. He wondered if the humans would ever come to know him and Sholtha as anything more than just another pair of animals. He also wondered if it would ever matter.

“We should go,” she said.

He made an attempt at a smile. “Yes. Yes, we should.”

They looked back across at the trees. Against the wall of deep green, they could make out their families standing there. He and Sholtha waved and their families waved back. Then the two of them turned and trotted into the dim interior.

The smells immediately bombarded his senses. Something collided with his tail. He turned to see one of the human women herding him and Sholtha. He growled. In the name of all that was sacred and holy! He wasn't a ruminant, by the Egg-Mother! He snapped at the long, narrow object the woman held.

“Do not fight them,” Sholtha pleaded.

He reluctantly yielded. He just wished he knew where they were going. If he did, he would simply have gone there and stayed out of the way. Before long, the two of them huddled in a small space. He hated small spaces. Sholtha hated them even more than he did, which was saying something.

After a while, he couldn't take it any longer. “I shall return shortly,” he said. He leaped straight up and grabbed what looked like a flat-sided tree trunk, all twelve of his claws digging into the wood. He climbed clear to the top and clung to the edge of an opening. He wasn't sure what he expected to see.

For a time, he just stared out into the open, at the vast forest that reached from the far side of the clearing to the open plain that then stretched to the far horizon where a low mountain range dove into the sea of green he'd traversed several days before.

As he watched, white clouds formed over those hills. The whiteness spread quickly, until it reached as far as he could see in both directions. It rose into the sky, growing as if there would be no end to it. It also seemed to be moving in his direction. He'd never seen anything like it. It swept toward him faster than anything he'd ever imagined. In just just a few dozen heartbeats, it had swallowed up the plain.

A noise seemed to come from it. It reminded him of the shriek of tens of thousands of birds merged with the death cries of thousands of prey animals and the rumble of a thousand waterfalls.

He turned and clambered back down and into the small enclosure.

“Thelen!” Sholtha shrieked as she wrapped her arms around his neck. She was quivering.

He told her what he'd just seen. Even in the dimness, he could see the fear in her eyes. So he held her closely, more as a close friend, a brother even, less as her future mate.

Before long, everything began to shake. At first, just a low vibration, not unlike the way the ground shook when a tree fell, or when herd animals ran across a plain. He'd felt it before. All his life, the ground had periodically shaken briefly, sometimes strongly enough to topple trees. But the shaking only intensified. All the animals inside began to chatter, their sounds counterpoint to the howling wail of whatever bore down on them outside.

The noise quickly grew until he couldn't hear himself think. The shaking make him feel like he just might have fallen off the floor itself. Then a loud BANG sounded from one side of the structure. The whole thing lurched violently, tilting upward, rising off the ground. Wood creaked and groaned. Then everything grew dark.

* * *

Robert Muldoon felt his eyelids pop open, bright light spearing his retinas. His left arm throbbed violently. He groaned and blinked, forcing his eyes to focus. He recognized the dinosaur skeletons that hung in the Jurassic Park Visitor Center lobby. He'd had that bloody dream again. Only it had been different than usual.

“Hey, he's waking up!” said a familiar voice. The girl...Alexis, if he recalled correctly.

His gaze rested on a somehow familiar face. He knew the long, green-grey snout and the amber eyes. “Sh...Sholtha?” he croaked.

“Yes. Yes!” she replied. “You renender!” When had she learned English?

He groaned. “Oh, bloody hell.”

“Is sonething wrong?”

He raised his right hand and rested it alongside her snout. She leaned into it. “I...I don't know...alsklinga.”

He saw her smile, her lips at the rear of her jaw slightly turning up, conspicuously revealing a few of her rearmost teeth, the rest of her lips parting slightly to show just a hint of her other teeth, and the muscles around her eyes tightening in a particular way that was nearly impossible to describe to someone not already familiar with a velociraptor smile.

“Um,” said Ellie Sattler, from his right, “Robert? What...?”

He let his hand fall back to his side and turned to Ellie Sattler's concerned and confused face. “I...erm...seem to have been a velociraptor in a former life,” he said. He nodded toward Sholtha. “Her velociraptor, actually.”

“No way,” said the boy...Tim, Robert reminded himself.

“Are you crazy?” said Alan Grant.

“Must be the morphine talking,” said Ellie.

“No,” said Robert, “no it isn't. At least, I don't think so. How much did you give me?”

“Enough to take the edge off, and maybe a little more.”

“Then definitely not.” He'd been on morphine before and was well acquainted with its effects on his mental state. “Thanks for that, by the way. For...holding back, I mean.”

“We didn't have much choice. There isn't much and Ian needs it, too.”

“Have you ever gone through opiate withdrawal?”

Ellie shook her head.

“It's bloody horrid. Believe me, the less you give me, the better.” He took a deep breath, collected his thoughts, and shared the dream he'd had.

“I have that dream every time I'm sick or injured. Which in my line of work is frequently. Sometimes it starts earlier, sometimes ends a lot later, and all the, erm, characters have always been blurry, but it's always the same story. Only this time, I saw a face. Her face.” He nodded to Sholtha. “And...” He held his own human hand in front of his eyes. “...I had claws. And feathers.” He looked at Sholtha. “Wait...why don't you have feathers?”

Sholtha's eyes narrowed. “I do not know.”

Robert raised his head off of something soft. “John? Why don't they have feathers?”

“Erm, well...” John Hammond havered.

Sholtha's head swiveled about the room. She pointed to John. “You! You did this to us!” she said irritably. “Ghere are our stheathers?”

“I...well...” stammered John.

Sholtha took a couple of steps in that direction.

“Don't hurt my grandpa!” barked Lex.

Sholtha glared at the girl. Robert heard her gasp slightly.

“I mean...” the girl began.

Sholtha took two steps toward the children. She thrummed pensively, the sound rising from her upper throat.

“Please!” John pleaded. “Don't hurt them! It's me you want. Just spare my grandchildren.”

Sholtha snorted. Without warning, she grabbed Tim's arm. The boy drew a ragged breath. Robert craned his neck around to look. He saw Sholtha poke a claw into Tim's wrist, heard him yelp in pain and the others gasp in alarm. Blood welled up around the wound. After a moment, Sholtha removed the claw and put it briefly into her own mouth. She grunted.

“Alsklinga?” said Robert. “What are you doing?”

She said nothing.

“Leave him alone!” said Lex.

She released Tim, who immediately clamped his over hand over his wrist, unsuccessfully fighting back tears. Robert could relate. He himself had suffered puncture wounds before—bites, thorns, you name it—and they hurt like hell. The boy certainly had a strong constitution—either that, or a powerful dose of obstinacy.

Sholtha abruptly grabbed Lex, who nearly screamed, then repeated the procedure.

She released Lex, who likewise clamped a hand over her wrist, tears flowing down her cheeks and a barely-controlled whimper of pain escaping from her mouth. She glared at Sholtha.

“Interesting,” said Sholtha.

“Stop it!” blurted John. “Stop it this instant!” The man was clearly, and understandably, terrified for his grandchildren. If Robert only knew what Sholtha was doing.

Sholtha ignored John and instead peered at Lex, who returned the raptor's gaze with a mix of defiance and fear. “What's interesting?” Lex demanded through her tears.

“You...do not renender?”

“Remember what?” Lex glowered.

Sholtha cocked her head. She tapped a claw against her own lower jaw, thrumming pensively. Then she reopened the wound on her wrist, grabbed Lex's arm again, swatted her hand away from her wound, and pressed her own against the girl's. Lex twitched and whimpered.

“You ghill,” said Sholtha.

“I will wha...” Lex cut off with a ragged breath. Her eyes widened and her breathing quickened. “N...n...no. No. No!”

Sholtha released Lex, who again planted a hand on her wrist. Dark red blood oozed slowly from around it. Fresh tears rose up in her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

“What did you do to her?” John demanded

Sholtha glanced at him. “The sane thing I did to Thelen.” She looked back at Lex. “I aghakened her nenory.”

“What?”

“She is ny sister. Ny dlood-sister.”

“What?!” said several people in not-quite unison.

“Asthriki,” said Sholtha, “do you renender now?”

Lex nodded, her eyes still wide. She made a squeaking sound.

“Wait,” said Tim, “so...he's...” He gestured toward Robert. “...your reincarnated...um, mate...and she's...” He nodded toward Lex. “...your reincarnated sister?”

“That is so.”

Tim's mouth curved into a smile. The smile turned to laughter as he pointed to his sister. “You're a meat-asaurus! You're a meat-asaurus!” he chanted with a sing-songy lilt.

“Shut-up!” Lex snapped.

Sholtha growled. “Nake teace, doth ozth you,” she said. She extended a claw toward Tim, who stopped laughing and backed away slightly. “Do not de so hard on her. She tut herselsth detgheen ne and you. She lozthes you.”

Tim and Lex exchanged glances. “Nuh-uh,” said Tim. “She hates...”

“Silence,” said Sholtha. “There is no dishonor in that.” She turned to Lex. “I did not nean to harn you, dut it ghas necessary. You ghill heal, yes?”

Lex nodded.

“Good.” Sholtha took another step toward Lex and...hugged her. Lex stiffened in response, then relaxed a little and, surprisingly, tentatively and briefly returned the hug.

“What do you mean you don't want to harm her?” Ellie demanded. “You killed people!”

“That ghas desthore ghe knew. And decause HE...” She jabbed a claw toward John. “...tut us in a cage!”

“Erm...” John stammered.

“If I'm not mistaken,” said Robert, “they're claustrophobic. More or less. Imagine being tied up, shoved into the boot of a motor-car, then driven around for two whole days. That should give you some idea of what it's been like for them. I'm really not surprised they've been so cross.”

“I guess,” said Tim, “this means you're not going to eat us?”

Sholtha chuffled soft laughter. “Ozth course I ghill not eat you.”

“This is all very touching,” said Alan, “but shouldn't we be getting out of here?”

Sholtha growled. “Ghy?”

“Because,” said Ellie, “Robert need medical attention. And thanks to you, so do the children.” She glanced at Robert. “And I used all the bandages on him.”

Sholtha cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “Ghat is wrong ghith ghat you hazth already done? You said he ghill not die.”

“He won't, but only if he's treated by a doctor. He needs stitches, antibiotics, and more painkillers. Which is why he needs to go to a hospital.”

Sholtha leaned close to Ellie and snorted. Ellie cocked her head. “Huh,” she said.

“Ghat?”

“Your breath smells like cinnamon.”

“Oh, right,” said Robert. “That. Erm...John? Would it be a problem if I were to stay here for a time?”

“Well...” said John.

“But what about your wounds?” said Ellie.

“Cinnamaldehyde.”

“You're kidding, right?”

Robert chuckled. “I once rubbed cinnamon bark into a set of Bengal tiger scratches. Hurt like a bugger, but worked like a charm.”

“I don't get it,” said Tim.

“Cinnamaldehyde,” said Ellie, “is an aromatic oil contained in cinnamon bark. Among other things, it's a natural fungicide and bacteriocide. Raptor saliva apparently contains it. Which means...” She looked at the children. “...that I suppose she could, um, lick your wounds clean.”

“Whoa,” said Tim.

“Euw,” said Lex.

Ellie shrugged. “Better than letting those holes in your arms get infected. And it could be a while before we can get the right kind of antibiotics into you.” She looked at Lex. “But who knows what effect that, uh, partial transfusion will have.”

Lex groaned. Tim giggled a little. “Not funny,” Lex grunted.

“Okay,” said Alan, “now that we're all going to live, and assuming you'll keep your word about not eating us, may we go now?”

“You nisunderstand us, hunan. No Khantushak has ezther nurdered another.”

“What about the ones you killed in your paddock?” said John.

“Accidents.”

“Accidents!”

Sholtha snorted. “Surely you did not extect a challenge to go ghell in such a snall stace. Deliezthe ne, ghe all nourned. Isth only the others had deen nore...trudent.”

“John?” said Robert. “About staying here...perhaps a week or so?”

“Well,” said John, “I think so, yes. But...”

“I have an idea,” said Robert. He began to get up. No sooner had he sat up, than a wave of dizziness swept over him. He felt Ellie steady him.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Take me to the hatchery.” He looked at Sholtha. “Care to join us?”

A vibration shuddered through the floor, then another, and another, each accompanied by a sturdy thump.

“Uh,” said Tim, his voice suddenly full of fear, “is that what I think it is?”

Lex started to breathe heavily, too.

“I have a very bad feeling about this,” said Alan.

“Can we go now?” said Lex.

“No tine,” said Sholtha. She barked order to her sisteren in her own language, then turned to Robert. “Try to stay out ozth the ghay, alskling.”


	4. Chapter 4

Sholtha stood in the center of the room, her tail flicking stiffly back and forth. She glanced first at Leriso, then at Hilthri. She took a deep breath and roared. Another, much deeper and far louder, one answered. She paced back and forth as the large animal...tranorsus, she believed the humans called it...shoved its way into the room.

The creature was enormous. Its head alone was more half the size of her own body and she could have fit neatly within its bowels. How it had managed to get in there, she wasn't sure. She reminded herself of the unimportance of such particulars. What mattered was that it stood before her, many of her body-weights of muscle, teeth, claws, and fury.

It seemed familiar somehow, as though she'd encountered it in her former life. Yet the more she chased the memory, the more it eluded her. She should have known the Blood-Memory rarely responded to force of will.

Instead, she relied on instinct. She skittered back and forth, bobbing up and down, drawing the beast's attention. It worked. The tranorsus looked directly at her, paused, then let out a deafening roar. It took two steps toward her and she tensed, ready to spring out of the way.

Without warning, Leriso and Hilthri launched themselves at opposite sides of the tranorsus. Each landed on the animal's flank, claws digging into its rough flesh, two sets of jaws biting into skin. The beast roared in pain and anger. Its attention divided, Sholtha sprang.

In that moment, her natural situational awareness and another lifetime of experience transformed both herself and the tranorsus from their respective selves into moving and connected vulnerabilities, threats, and weapons, each connected to the other and in fluid motion, the one in orbit about the other.

She hurtled forward, ducking beneath an immense head, and leaped upward, the stiff tails of her sisteren twitching in her peripheral vision. The brown, fleshy wall unexpectedly rose out of Sholtha's reach.

She sailed through mid-air before her claws caught on skin, her weight dragging her downward, leaving irregular, bloody furrows in her wake. She kicked, her rear claws only occasionally slicing through skin and muscle. A twist dislodged her, dragging a few shreds of flesh with her.

She struck the floor mostly on her back, then rolled onto her feet. One motion out of the corner of her eye became Leriso swinging through the air, tail caught in a set of jaws, body curled up, and all four limbs clawing furiously at the snout that held her. Leriso's body weight tore her away, her screech of pain and anger fading with each heartbeat.

Another roar, and the head swung back to address Hilthri. Sholtha leaped onto the inside of a leg, grabbing it with all her claws and biting into it. Blood welled up around her teeth. The taste of it filled her mouth and she let it trickle down her throat. The Blood-Memory responded, filling in more gaps in Sholtha's knowledge of the world she'd once known so long ago.

She watched the huge head abandon its search for Hilthri mid-lunge and turn back around to reach for Sholtha. It was fast! She barely avoided a snap of teeth, moving around to place the leg between herself and the jaws of death. She continued to claw and gnaw, hands holding her in place, her back legs pumping up and down, their claws shredding muscle and, hopefully, tendon.

A sideways lurch dislodged Hilthri, who slid downward, her tail dragging on the floor. Sholtha could see her scrabbling against the flesh, no doubt tearing it to ribbons as she tried to climb. The head swung around and clamped onto Hilthri's tail, pulling her free. A moment later, a sickening crunch silenced a Khantushakal screech.

The body above Sholtha's head moved rapidly side to side, the motion telegraphing to the leg to which Sholtha clung. The shaking stopped, followed moments later by a heavy thump.

The head swung around again, biting at Sholtha. It bellowed a roar of pain and frustration. The leg jerked back and forth violently, throwing Sholtha to the floor. She slid a few paces beneath the tail, leaving ruddy streaks where her feet trailed blood across the floor, the iron-copper tang still hanging in her nostrils. She shoved a sliver of flesh off a tooth with her tongue and let it slide down her gullet.

She righted herself, keeping low, avoiding the tail swinging back and forth just above her head. Gnashing jaws turned toward her, the injured leg buckling with each attempt as weight shifted to it, only to immediately shift back to the uninjured foot. Sholtha prepared to take advantage. Perhaps she could still rupture her foe's Life-Spring.

A loud sound like that of thunder filled the air, echoing all around her. The head swung away from her. The clap sounded again. A higher-pitched one followed it, then four more in rapid succession and another of the deeper ones.

Sholtha used the distraction to jump unopposed back onto the leg, then resumed tearing and shredding. Another deep clap, a roar of fury, then several more higher claps shattered the air, hammering her ears. She poured her own fury into the flesh before her, digging toward bone, the leg it supported lurching constantly from side to side.

Another deep clap. Another roar, wet-sounding, as though being forced through water. The roar tapered off into a gurgle.

Something wet erupted from the muscle in front of her. Red fluid spurted out, splashing across her snout. She had ruptured the Life-Spring! It was only a matter of time, mercifully short time, before it emptied. She clung to the ruined leg, taking a moment to rest somewhat, lapping the sweet red fluid as it gushed from the gaping wound in front of her.

A weak roar wheezed mournfully into the room. The leg shuddered and twitched. Sholtha disengaged while she was still in control. Once the leg failed, the body it supported would quickly collapse. She'd seen how abruptly that could happen and how easily she could be caught and crushed.

Her feet hit the floor, slipping on the blood that had trickled and later poured out onto it. She flexed her knees and prepared to move. Another deep clap sounded, then more higher ones, then another deeper one.

The body above her tipped sideways and Sholtha half-leaped, half-skittered in the other direction, ducking between the good leg and the base of the tail. She cleared three paces, then spun about, her tail smacking uncomfortably against the wall. She ignored it.

Her perception shifted. She again became herself, her foe again a tranorsus as it fell with a thud-splut that shook everything. Its flanks rose, fell, rose, fell, rose, and fell with a long, mournful howl that ended in a gravelly sigh. Then all was still. The silence was almost as deafening as the fight had been.

Sholtha trotted across the floor, bounced up onto the tranorsus' flank, then along it to the head that lay on the floor in an expanding pool of blood. Where its right eye had been, a bloody hole gaped at her. Pinkish froth clung to its jaws, the tip of its snout shredded.

She jumped to the floor, slipping briefly and spinning a full revolution. The beast's chest passed through her vision, a large ruddy patch in its chest and more red marks in its neck and the underside of its jaw that moved past her too quickly for her to clearly discern.

She came to rest, then carefully tottered the few short paces to the small knot of humans who cowered against the wall, her claws clicking on the floor. They all stared at her and she stared back.

Every one of them was liberally spattered with red, as though they'd lain for several score heartbeats in a light rain of blood, or had passed through a mist of it. For several pregnant moments, her gaze shifted from one set of eyes to the next, holding each for a few heartbeats.

She stepped up to Thelen, who knelt on the floor, a strange object in his uninjured hand. Steam wafted up from one end of it. He wore a grim, determined expression mixed with pain. She wiped a knuckle across his forehead, leaving a thick trail of tranorsus blood from one temple to the other.

She looked over at Asthriki, then stepped over to her. She held the object Sholtha recognized as the human death-giver tool, steam likewise wafting from one end. Asthriki's eyes were wide, her breathing rapid.  
Sholtha wiped another knuckle across her sister's forehead, trailing tranorsus blood from hairline to hairline. She stepped back. “Victory is life!” she called in her language.

“Victory is life!” echoed Thelen and Asthriki in their human tongue.

Asthriki dropped her tool to the floor and stared at her hands for a few moments before meeting Sholtha's eye. “That was...really violent!” she exclaimed.

Sholtha chuckled. Then she looked over her shoulder and sighed. She had lost sisteren in combat. And it was time to mourn them.


	5. Chapter 5

Robert Muldoon could feel the heat, even over a mile of water. He exhaled heavily. They'd barely pulled away from the dock when the first of the bombs had fallen. He'd watched film footage of napalm strikes during Vietnam. But seeing it in person made his skin crawl.

The glow from thousands of hectares of burning vegetation competed with that of the setting sun. He'd watched the sky gradually deepen from bright blue toward the deep twilight that would soon swallow up the black smoke billowing from the island. Before long, only the orange glow of the Isla Nublar fires would remain. He wondered if those fires, like the smoke they produced, would be visible from the mainland. Fortunately, he and his would be long gone on their voyage north before anyone would arrive to investigate. The inevitable stories notwithstanding, it was bound to happen.

He swallowed another ibuprofen. Even after a week, his left arm still throbbed. He and Ellie had come to some disagreements over how to treat his wounds. In the end, they'd liberally flushed everything with deionized water and saline, which had hurt like a bugger. He'd super-glued the holes that would otherwise have required stitches and simply let the others scab over before wrapping the whole thing with clean shop rags and duct tape. It all lay exposed as he looked it over in the incandescent light shining over his shoulder.

The entire lower arm looked far worse than it felt. From wrist to elbow was nearly one solid bruise in six psychedelic colors. Visible against that were the scabs over the shallower nicks and slices mostly through skin on the edges of the bite area. The nastier wounds where Sholtha's teeth had plunged into muscle, a few of them deeply enough to nick the bone, were more visible as tight areas than they were as the dark pink inflammation that would otherwise have stood out against his Anglo skin. Those would eventually heal to nice white scars that would become even more visible during the summer when the skin around them would burn and then lightly tan.

He flexed his hand, then the arm, then the muscles themselves. He winced, regretting the motion. The scabs and super-glue pulled against the skin on either side of each wound, painfully refusing to stretch as they otherwise would have. A few of the scabs pulled open, leaking a little blood and lymph. The still-healing muscle inside rebelled, sharp, prickling pain radiating outward from the deeper bites. Beneath it all, the bone ached slightly and he was thankful no muscles attached at the center of radius or ulna.

He chuckled ruefully. When he'd first agreed to the job at Jurassic Park, he'd never dreamed it would have turned out the way it had. He had a feeling his life had really only begun to change and irrevocably so. He reminded himself that pain healed, females fancied scars, and glory lasted forever.

He turned his back on the receding fires and stepped off the fantail, climbing down steep metal stairs that were more of a ladder and into the hold. They hadn't even reached international waters and he was already thankful he wasn't particularly prone to seasickness. He crossed a narrow walkway and into a large chamber.

“Well, alsklinga,” he said as he hung his hat on the top of a post, “we're underway. Should be pretty clear sailing. Satellites show clear skies for the foreseeable future.”

Sholtha grunted.

He squatted down, scritched both female hatchlings atop their heads and under their chins, then patted the lone male on his flank, taking care not to knock him over.

“You still feeling okay?” he asked as he sat down.

She nodded.

He chuckled. “I seem to remember you being seasick the whole time we were supposedly afloat.”

Sholtha grunted again.

He sat back against her flank, then stiffened. “You...erm...don't mind me doing this, do you?”

She shook her head slightly. “Isth I did, you ghould know it.”

He chuckled slightly.

“Do you think it to de true? Ghat Alan said adout the Ark?”

“That our memories are a metaphor?” He groaned.

That dream had always felt like more than just a dream. But that didn't necessarily mean a lot and, despite how real it had seemed, and despite how convinced he was of his newfound identity, it certainly didn't mean he'd ever actually set foot on a literal Ark. Yet Sholtha had been quite insistent that they had.

And, naturally, Grant, Sattler, and Malcolm had just as adamantly insisted it just wasn't scientifically possible. They'd gone round and round about it in the hatchery following the Tyrannosaur attack. The Bosphorus Strait theory. The Missoula Floods. Genetic memory. Chaos and Hydroplate Theories. Telephone Mythology. Meteorites. And on and on.

There was no evidence, Grant had said. Of course there wasn't. How would one go about finding evidence for a memory anyway? And, of course, just because someone remembered something in a particular way, that didn't mean it had actually happened like that. Even if it had, what evidence was left to be found? Moreover, assuming the dream really was a memory, who was to say it wasn't a hodgepodge of several related memories all mashed together into some kind of hybrid recollection that may or may not have had much resemblance to real events?

The trouble was, Sholtha's memories were almost exactly the same as his own—which he thought suspicious and Malcolm thought coincidental. It was all very curious, very confusing, and somehow inexplicably convincing.

They'd argued literally nonstop the rest of the day and all the next touching on just about every area of science and many areas tangential to it. They could have easily kept going for a month, or so it had seemed. By dusk, Sholtha seemed about to literally bite someone's head off and the humans, himself included, hadn't been much better. In hindsight, Robert figured a lot of it had come down to over-frayed nerves from the previous days' events, and the usual propensity to hold fast to one's beliefs, evidence or no.

All Robert really knew for sure was that he was at least as confused about paleohistory as he'd been before Sholtha had attacked him. At the moment, he was certain of only three things, really: that was a reincarnated velociraptor; that he and Sholtha had been the only two of their kind to escape whatever disaster had exterminated the others; and that something as-yet unidentified with them had been supplying information by some equally unidentifiable means.

“I don't know,” he said at length. “I'm not sure it really matters either.”

Sholtha growled slightly.

Robert exhaled. “Look, I want to respect your beliefs,” he said mildly. “I really do. The Blood-Memory taught you everything you know, awakened both our memories and showed me who I really am. I also know what science tells us. But the world is a very strange place. Every year, we learn something new about it, something that tells us how much stranger it is than we thought. We have a very long history of discovering that something we thought we knew was actually wrong. So who knows? Maybe we're all right and maybe we're all wrong. Maybe the truth about what actually happened lies somewhere between science and the Blood-Memory.”

He reached over and patted Sholtha on the neck, then smiled. “We have a lot of time to talk about all that. People have spent years, lifetimes even, studying this stuff...and arguing over it. You and I aren't going to settle it in just a few days. And in the meantime, we really do have more pressing matters.

“Like how to feed some of you between here and there for starters. And getting to know each other all over again. And then there's keeping the lot of you from getting yourselves killed between here and Wyoming, to say nothing of your lives once we get there. And _that_ , alsklinga, is irrefutably real and true.”

Sholtha's eyes narrowed. “I thought you said you had ideas.”

“Oh, I do,” he said, drawing one of the hatchlings up beside him. “That's not the problem. Implementing them, on the other hand, is. Bloody irresponsible of me to go off unprepared, but we didn't exactly have a whole lot of time for that. Believe me, I'd much rather deal with this...” He made an encompassing gesture. “...than watch the lot of you go up in flames.”

“The...nataln?”

“Napalm, yeh.” He chuckled ruefully, then propped his right elbow up on Sholtha's flank and shifted to more easily look her in the eyes. “We humans have an expression...for better or for worse. It's part of one of our...erm...courtship rituals, you could say.” There were still so many holes in his memories.

Had velociraptors done weddings? He didn't know and Sholtha hadn't been forthcoming about it. He certainly didn't remember going through any sort of ceremony when the two of them had formally pledged themselves to one another in their previous lives. The two of them had only been six months old when the rest of their race had perished. So he'd never even witnessed velociraptor courtship rituals. And the Blood-Memory seemed...spotty and frustratingly so.

Sholtha grunted affirmation. She apparently knew what he meant, that they were committed to what they'd chosen and they'd just have to adapt and improvise along the way. She locked eyes with him, then nodded. “Does that still hurt?”

Robert looked down at his injured and colorful arm. He nodded. “Yeh. It will for a while, until it heals. Ellie thinks the bone may have been nicked in a couple of places and if the way it aches is any indication, she's probably right. If that's the case, I expect it'll always hurt, if only a little.”

She looked sad. “I...an sorry.”

“Alsklinga? I forgive you. If you hadn't done it, we would never have known about me...or Asthriki. And our people wouldn't have made peace with each other. I consider it an acceptable sacrifice.” He saw her smile and he smiled in return.

“Now, we have a lot to talk about.” He glanced down at the younglings gazing lovingly up at him. They reminded him of his own human children. “About what to expect between here and Wyoming and what we'll do when we get there. We're all going to have new lives together. Now, I want you all to listen very, very carefully,” he said, taking care to enunciate each word clearly. Yes, things were going to be quite interesting indeed.

* * *

Robert Muldoon wiped his hands, then surveyed the results of his afternoon's work. The differences between the contents of the two platters on the ship's galley counter couldn't have been more different. They had only one thing in common, and that was a single ingredient: freshly-caught fish, fish that had taken him all morning to land off the fantail.

His plate contained a sword-fish steak, griddle-seared and seasoned with black pepper, garlic powder, and ground chilis, steamed oca, boiled quinoa, and a sweet potato. The other plate, far larger than his own, contained several chunks of sword-fish and its heart and liver, all raw.

Robert flinched slightly. He'd had sushi not much different than that. Most sushi was raw fish. Yet somehow the plate before him was different than that. He'd once been an aggressive predator and that he'd eaten raw meat in his former life, usually before it had stopped kicking. That had been brutal and merciless and he knew it.

He'd been doing a lot of thinking over the last few days. Some of it had kept him up at night. He still had quite a bit more to do. Life since his Awakening would never be the same as it had been before.

He lifted the platter from the counter and winced. The strain pulled on his wounds. He slid his right arm under the center of the load, shifting most of the weight to it. Satisfied, he carefully carried it down into the ship's hold.

“Dinner is served,” he said as he set the plate awkwardly on the floor.

Sholtha giggled and the younglings tittered excitedly. “Sthor us?” she said.

He could hear the delight in her voice. “Yes.” He picked up his own plate. “Except this one, of course.” He sat down cross-legged, picked up his fork and paused, noticing the way Sholtha looked at him. It was an expectant expression. What did she want?

His memories from his former life were still highly fragmented. A few more returned every night, but progress was slow, piecemeal, and random, exceedingly so.

He decided to fall back on his forty years of habit and upbringing. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, and said a blessing over their food, then made the sign of the cross before saying, “Amen.” He opened his eyes and picked up his fork.

“That ghas,” said Sholtha, “interesting.”

He took a bite and chewed. He wasn't entirely sure how to respond. He used the time it took him to chew to gather his thoughts. When he'd swallowed, he explained to Sholtha and the younglings what his religion said about giving thanks to the Creator.

“You hunani,” she said, “you deliezth in Ard-Khar-Lla'ia...” Egg-Mother “...also?”

“It's...complicated,” he said, then took another bite.

Sholtha considered Robert for a moment. Then she looked skyward and said something in her language, something Robert almost understood, something that skirted the edge of his memory. He really wished the Blood-Memory had supplied that information. On the other hand, it was still responding, so it still might. He doubted he'd wake up one morning suddenly fluent, but he'd take what he could get.

He watched and listened as her tone rose and fell rhythmically. It was almost a song. After what was easily a full minute, she finished with a short, high-pitched, nearly uvular trill.

“That was beautiful,” he said.

“That is how ghe gizth thanks to Ard-Khar-Lla'ia,” she said. Then she and the younglings tore into their meal. The contrast between the fluid beauty of Sholtha's song to the Egg-Mother and the savagery with which she devoured her sword-fish was striking. The younglings, though none was any more than a month old, matched Sholtha's aggression ounce for ounce.

He'd seen nearly every kind of predator attack its prey. Lions, wolves, hawks, snakes, and many more. Yet he didn't feel particularly alarmed. As a human, he knew he should be absolutely terrified. But as a velociraptor, it was the most natural thing in the world.

* * *

A couple of hours later, Robert had returned the dishes to the galley and had cleaned the floor. Thanks to the younglings' thoroughness, that last bit hadn't taken much more than a few quick swipes with a cloth and a vinegar solution.

He walked back to their usual place, his hat already on its post. He looked about. Sholtha sat there, settled on the fleshy pad on the end of her pubis, looking regal and feminine. “Where are the younglings?” he asked.

Sholtha twitched her head toward a darkened corner. “To ded,” she said.

He grunted in acknowledgment. The two of them locked eyes for a moment and he felt his body temperature rise. He saw something in those eyes, something he'd seen many, many times in his former life. He knew exactly what that meant and he wasn't sure he could go there. Not that he was particularly resistant to the idea, but there were certain...anatomical considerations.

He smiled despite himself, then reached out and stroked her snout. She leaned into it and purred in a manner curiously feline, but more gravelly. He stood that way for some time, just stroking her while they gazed into each other's eyes. Her skin felt not so rough as it looked. Was his mind playing tricks on him, the Blood-Memory helping him remember how she'd been before? Had the higher humidity and the stagnant conditions inside had a moisturizing effect on her? He didn't know. But he decided he liked how she felt and he said so.

“You do?” Sholtha asked. She sounded surprised.

Robert nodded. Then he leaned over and kissed her on the nose. Not a peck-on-the-cheek sort of kiss, but a more lingering one. “I love you,” he said quietly. That statement surprised him. It had come out of nowhere, or so it seemed. He suddenly realized that he did indeed love her. Moreover, he also realized that he'd loved her all along, but he probably hadn't been aware of it.

Sholtha smiled. Then she shifted her weight, thrust her hips high into the air, and moved her tail off to the side. Robert knew exactly what that meant. He didn't however, remember much else about velociraptor courtship. He stared at her posterior, then looked back to her face, then back to her tail, then back to her face.

Sholtha cocked her head to the side as if to ask him why he was waiting.

Robert ran a hand through his hair nervously. He wasn't sure he'd been quite so addled since his wedding day some fifteen years before. He also wasn't entirely sure what to say. Maybe there wasn't much TO say.

He sighed, then chuckled slightly and began to unbutton his shirt. She watched him quizzically. Before long, he'd draped all his clothing over the low wooden wall behind Sholtha. Then he stood before her in his altogethers, nothing between them but the stifling air. He knew he looked a lot different to her than she remembered.

Sholtha smiled, then narrowed her eyes and purred seductively. Robert swallowed, feeling himself rising. He stepped behind Sholtha and pushed his hips between her tail and her upper leg. Then he frowned.

“Erm...alsklinga?”

She replied with an inquisitive grunt.

“I...erm...don't think this is going to work.”

She cocked her head. “Ghy not?” she asked innocently.

“Because...” He wasn't sure how to explain it. He quickly decided to be direct. “...because I'm not as long as I used to be.”

Sholtha blinked. “Ghat do you nean?”

Robert squirmed. “My...erm...” He stepped aside and pointed to his still-erect...well, mostly erect...nethers. “...is that long. To reach your ovaduct, it needs to be at least this long.” He held his left hand out, indicating a distance closer to a half meter.

Sholtha blinked again. “Oh,” she said flatly.

The two of them looked at each other for many moments. Finally, Sholtha asked, “How do you hunani do it?”

Robert hadn't been expecting that question. He presumed she was referring to positions. “Well...lots of ways. But often...front to front.”

Sholtha grunted pensively. She lifted a hand and scratched the underside of her jaw with a knuckle. “Nozthe,” she said.

Only a week before, he'd been having a bit of trouble understanding her English at times. She apparently couldn't pronounce any labial sounds. Which made her diction awkward. But he'd grown used to it.

He stepped sideways as Sholtha lowered her hips and tail, then stepped sideways herself. She executed a controlled fall onto her side and rolled over onto her back, all her legs sticking up into the air. The effect was quite comical.

But the way she looked at him most definitely wasn't. He knew exactly what she wanted and it made his pulse race and his manhood re-stiffen. There was only one thing for it.

Robert stepped over between Sholtha's legs and straddled the base of her tail. He knelt down and found her ovaduct easily enough. He at least remembered that much, but little else. Which was probably just as well. It would be like his first time all over again.

He slipped into her. She was as warm as he remembered.

Sholtha made a sound that he was unsure how to interpret. “You felt that?” he asked.

“Oh, yes!” she purred.

That was surprising. Surely human and velociraptor male anatomy differed in more than just length. Or did it? After all, he'd seen antelope phaluses that were much slighter in girth than he'd have expected.

He made a single smooth, gentle thrust. Her body moved very slightly, though the flesh around her ovaduct yielded, with a soft splurchy sound. She made the same kind of sound she had a moment before. He stopped.  
She made a mildly distressed noise.

He withdrew slightly, then gently thrust again and again and again. He didn't know if she felt him the way she had in their past life together, but it was quite clear she enjoyed it. So who was he to argue?

The moments stretched on until he'd lost track of time. More images flashed through his consciousness, memories of sensual encounters he and Sholtha had shared in their past life, no doubt brought on by his intimate contact with her.

Sholtha tipped her head backward, soft grunting, cooing sounds escaping from her throat. The faster and harder he moved, the shorter the intervals between her vocalizations. After some time, she let of a gravelly rawking sound, then a deep, throaty ululation. One of her legs kicked at the air. She stiffened and snorted. Then he let himself go.

He remained inside her for several more moments, breathing heavily. She lifted her head and gazed into his eyes, her own breathing rapid. Then her eyes slipped from his and she gasped. “Thelen! Your arn!”

Only then did he become aware of the pain returning to his wounds. He glanced over, winced, and grunted. How had that not distracted him? Had the endorphines and the excitement of the moment blocked the pain somehow? Or had it been one of the many mysteries of the Blood-Memory?

He rocked back, pulling out of Sholtha, and stood shakily to his feet. He stepped back over her tail as she rolled back upright. He pulled his undershorts back on, rendered somewhat awkward one-handed, then his short trousers, which proved even more so.

All the while, the wetness of blood leaking from newly reopened wounds and the slight hint of its iron-copper tang wafting into his nostrils. That smell must have been driving Sholtha mad. Though apparently, and fortunately, it didn't have the same effect on her that it had on sharks.

“You should tend to that,” she said, her voice full of concern.

“Yeh,” he said absently. “I'll be right back.” He winked at her over his shoulder and rushed off to the head.

The water running over his arm stung a little as it always did. He dabbed it clean with a chamois, then dabbed it again, and again, and again, until the blood began to congeal on its own. He sighed in relief. It still hurt and, as had every other injury over the last five years, reminded him that he wasn't twenty anymore.

He made his way back to Sholtha's side, and sat down against her. Her bumpy skin felt nice against his bare back. At first, he just looked across into empty space. Then he turned to look her in the eyes. “That was...” he started to say.

“Ghondersthul,” she finished.

He raised an eyebrow. “You think so?”

She nodded.

“You...weren't faking it?” He regretted the question as soon as he'd asked it.

Sholtha scowled. “Ozth course not!” she spat.

He flinched. “Sorry, alsklinga. It's just that...women sometimes do that.”

“Terhats hunanae do that. Dut not Khantushakhae. Do you not renender?”

He sighed. “No. Not really. Most of my memories of that life...well, nearly all of them, actually...are images and feelings. The Blood-Memory is apparently...selective...or random.”

Sholtha grunted. Then after a moment. “You...nezther used to do that to me.”

Robert raised an eyebrow. “I'm sorry? Do what?”

“Nake ne stheel like that.”

“Do you mean to say that...that I never brought you to orgasm in the other life?”

Sholtha nodded.

“Well, that was damn bloody inconsiderate of me.”

Sholtha laughed, then gave him her bedroom eyes. “Tlease do it again?” She looked at his arm and the smile faded. “That is, ghen you are healed.”

Robert chuckled. “Believe me, I have every intention.” Then he looked aside and exhaled. “How the bloody hell am I going to explain all this to Jill?” It was more of a rhetorical question. He didn't really expect Sholtha to have an answer. She was smart, of course, but she simply wasn't human and didn't think like one. On the other hand, she was still female, so perhaps she'd have some insight.

“She is your hunana, yes?”

He nodded. “My wife, yes.”

“She nakes you hatty, yes?”

He smiled. “Yes. Yes, she does.”

“And the younglingi you hazth dy her?”

He nodded.

“Good. Then that nakes ne hatty also.”

“But it also makes things complicated.”

“How?”

He explained the human concept of monogamous marriage, his wedding vows, and how taking another female in the way he and Sholtha had just shared was nearly always considered a violation of those vows and a betrayal of love.

Sholtha grunted. “I understand. Is that not as it is ghith Khantushaki?”

“I don't know. Is it?”

Sholtha's eyes narrowed. “Ozth course it is!” she said irritably. Then, “Ah...you do not renender that detail?”

He shook his head. “Not so much. But it sounds like you're saying Khantushaki are monogamous, too.”

She nodded. “It is so.”

He frowned pensively. “And...it doesn't bother you that I have another?”

“No. It does not.”

“Why?”

“Decause I know you do not detray our lozthe. You lozthed her and chose her desthore you learned who you are. And she sthills your heart ghith shoy. And that nakes ne hatty.”

“I'm not sure Jill would share your perspective.”

“She ghill de...utset?”

He chuckled. “Oh, yes. You have no idea.”

“Ghill you de sthorced to choose? Detgheen us?”

He sighed. “Oh, bugger, I hope not. But it might come to that.”

Sholtha sighed. “Then...do not let ne intersthere.”

He chuckled. “I think you already have. Not that I stopped you. No, there has to be another way, a way for all three of us to coexist peacefully. I love both of you and you both love me. There has to be a way. Anything else is unacceptable.”

She chuckled. “Yes...yes, it is you. You hazth alghays deen like that. Alghays sthailure is not an ottion.”

“We're all going to live together peacefully and we're all going to get along. On pain of death.” He smirked and winked at her. She laughed.

“You hazth the sane dry hunor, too.”

He shrugged. “And now for something completely different,” he said in his best John Cleese impression. “I want to re-learn to at least understand our language. You learned English, which is impressive, by the way. It's a bloody mix-up of a language, it is. I want to learn Khantushakal.”

“Ghill you de adle to steak it?”

“Not sure. There are some sounds in English you can't make and I've heard you make some sounds I'm not sure I can make. Our mouths aren't the same.”

She nodded. “Shall ghe degin in the norning?”

“Sure.” He stood up to douse the light. He caught Sholtha looking at him. Oh, bloody hell. He shed his shorts as she rolled over onto her back.

That time, he didn't try to support himself with his injured arm. Which made the whole thing a little awkward. But he at least avoided re-opening his wounds again. When they'd finished, she lay on her side, he up against her belly. He stroked the rough hand that lay across his bare shoulder.

“We still have much to discuss, alsklinga,” he said.

“Indeed,” she replied.

“Now we should get some sleep.” He added to himself, and God help me if I have to explain this to anyone else.


	6. Chapter 6

Sholtha paced back and forth. At least, she _tried_ to pace. It didn't help that the space around her was much narrower than she was long. What was it about long, narrow spaces that made her kind so...what was the human word...claustrophobic? The forest was a close-in space and she'd been just fine with that, both in her new life as well as her old one. But the small transport crates the humans had used to move her to the raptor enclosure had given her the willies. The enclosure itself hadn't been much better. Had it been any wonder she and her sisteren had been attacking anything that moved?

Thelen had warned her about it during the voyage across the waters between Costa Rica and a place called Monterrey. If anything, he'd understated things. The modified, reinforced cattle trailer that carried her toward her new home was almost as bad as the raptor crate had been. Only three things kept her even remotely sane: keeping the younglings under something resembling control; contemplating all the things Thelen had told her about what to expect from the place he'd called Wyoming; and remembering how he'd treated her during the voyage.

Wrangling the younglings had turned out to be an excellent distraction throughout the entire journey. That was particularly the case during the final, overland leg. Sholtha kept herself occupied pulling them off the walls, telling them stories about things she remembered through the Blood-Memory, and reviewing the coming of their new life.

Thelen had spent considerable time going over certain things he'd insisted would be relevant to life in Wyoming, particularly as she and the others were to be living among humans. First and foremost, humans were apparently quite touchy about certain matters. They were highly territorial, guarding both their personal space and their possessions with what Thelen had described as a rabid ferocity. He'd told her about things like doors and fences as means of defining that space, but that possessions were another matter entirely. He'd illustrated that point using the clothing he wore. She'd understood, of course, though she just couldn't fathom why anyone would embrace such a burdensome philosophy.

He'd expressed his concern over what he'd called “legal status.” As far as other humans were concerned, Sholtha and the younglings wouldn't have any rights. Humans apparently held a strangely conflicting idea that while some kinds of animals were “people with fur,” such “people” had never been given status on the same level with humans, regardless of how much the humans came to love them. It was something generally limited to dogs, cats, and horses. Yet most humans also didn't regard those animals as “sentient.” But both she and Thelen knew Khantushaki had souls. Still, Thelen had been worried that his fellow humans would never accept Sholtha and the younglings as anything but highly intelligent, dangerous animals, “land dolphins,” he'd said.

He'd also explained that humans had multiple Alphas, depending on the situation. Fortunately, it was unlikely she'd have to deal with most of them. What was most important was that Thelen's human wife Jill was to be regarded as Alpha Female on most matters. Sholtha hadn't been particularly happy about that, but Thelen had insisted. It was obviously very important to him that both of his mates be at peace with one another, so Sholtha had eventually resigned herself to submission. He'd also talked about his three human children named Hannah, George, and Milly and they'd sounded like perfectly delightful people.

The way Thelen had treated her during the voyage had been especially meaningful to her. Much of it was so familiar, like how she remembered from their previous life. The way he'd made love to her—how he approached her in general, as well as introducing her to something called 'foreplay' and something else called “tantric sex”--had made her feel feminine. And the rest of the time, he'd made her feel loved and respected. He'd talked to her as an equal. He'd stroked her head, caressed her hands, leaned against her as they'd talked, and cuddled up to her as they'd slept. No one had so much as held her as a hatchling, barely even touching her for anything other than for medical purposes. She'd suggested to Thelen that such things had been partly to blame for her perpetual irritability back on the island, an irritability that had been quickly waning in the wake of her discovery concerning Thelen. Unsurprisingly, he'd concurred.

And so she'd grumbled constantly the whole time she and the others were being loaded into the cattle car shortly before their arrival in Monterrey. They'd loaded the other hatchlings first—triceratops, parasorolophus, gallamimus, procompsognathus, hadrosaurs, and several other smaller species—then the Khantushakal hatchlings, and finally herself. That had been during what Thelen had called “the wee hours.”

She'd just seen a second sunrise since then and she was fit to be tied. She swore to the Egg-Mother that she was going to attack the very first thing she saw whenever that door opened. Not that she was particularly premeditating upon it. She was simply fed up with being pent up, and feeling keenly claustrophobic to the point that her erstwhile irritability had returned with a vengeance.

Their speed finally slowed and, after a while, the vehicle Thelen had called a lorry came to a stop. Unlike the couple of times they'd paused to do what he'd called refueling, the noise and vibration from the lorry ceased completely.

Sholtha shuffled from one foot to the other, tapping her claws nervously. She snorted, chuffled, and trilled restlessly, then let out several long-suppressed growls.

A female voice penetrated the gloom. “Oh, good Lord!” That must have been Jill and she sounded alarmed. “What the hell did you do to yourself this time?”

“Ah, 'tis a scratch,” said Thelen dismissively.

“A scratch? You're insane, you know that?” A pause. “What the hell do you have in there?”

Her voice had a different sound to it than Thelen's did. He'd described it as “western twang,” a reference she didn't know, but that Thelen said he'd be happy to point out to her. She'd been looking forward to meeting Jill. At the moment, though, all she wanted was out.

“Some new friends,” said Thelen, “and...family.”

“Family, huh?” Jill didn't sound too convinced. “Since when do family travel in a cattle car?” No, definitely not convinced. Sholtha half-wondered if the woman would be even remotely glad to meet her. “You didn't bring your work home with you, did you?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Keys rattled, one turned the lock on the door, and the latch turned. “You guys had better...stand back. They've been a bit...cooped up. They'll probably be a little irritable.” That was an understatement. “Welcome to Wyoming!”

The door swung down, hitting the ground with a loud bang that echoed both inside the trailer and around the space outside it. Sholtha launched herself over the door-turned-ramp, letting out an unhappy, squealing growl in the process. She hurtled across a dimly-lit space and tore into the first object she encountered.

It didn't take long for her to unload her tension onto whatever it was. When she was done, she stepped back and peered at the object. It seemed to be a short, limbless tree.

“Erm, congratuations, alsklinga,” said Thelen from a few feet away. “I do believe you've just murdered a post.”

Sholtha eyed him. His humor really could be quite dry. He'd attributed it to being British, but she seemed to remember it being like that even when he'd been Khantushak. Then she looked back at what remained of the post, as he'd called it. She snorted, then turned toward him.

Four people stood behind him, no doubt his family. Their jaws hung open and their eyes looked ready to fall out of their heads. At least they weren't screaming. Otherwise, it was quite humorous. Humans were still dangerous, but they really could be amusing. It was really too bad she'd been so harsh with their kind back on Isla Nublar.

She heard the younglingi also attacking the post beside her. She turned her head and instructed them to stand down. They reluctantly obeyed, though she wondered how long that would last. Every youngling went through a defiant phase and sometimes the resulting challenges to their elders went very, very badly.

“Sholtha,” said Thelen, “I'd like you to meet my wife Jill...” The woman waved. “...my daughters Hannah and Milly...” Both girls just stared. “...and my son George.”

Sholtha recognized all the names, of course. Thelen had talked about them quite a bit during their sea voyage. In fact, Sholtha felt like she'd met them even before she'd seen them.

“It's a dinosaur!” George squealed.

“Yes,” said Thelen. “Yes, she is. A velociraptor, specifically.”

Sholtha stepped forward and extended her right hand in the human greeting Thelen had taught her. Then she waited.

Jill tentatively reached over, then paused. She looked nervously to Thelen. He nodded. Jill resumed her motion. Sholtha wrapped her fingers around Jill's hand and shook it gently like Thelen had showed her. She repeated the hand-shaking with the children, though only George seemed at all enthusiastic.

“Everyone, this is Sholtha.” She noticed he left off the part about them being mates. It annoyed her a little, but that had been among the many things they'd discussed while at sea. They'd agreed that he should be the one to broach that to his human family.

Milly stepped forward. “Milly?” said Jill fearfully, “Milly, don't! Stay back!”

Milly ignored her mother. Instead, the girl walked right up to Sholtha. “Hi,” she said.

“Milly,” said Jill. Then to Thelen. “Is...is she dangerous?”

“Not to the children, no.”

“Not to the children?” said Jill dubiously.

George walked defiantly over to Sholtha. Then he looked at Thelen. “She's a Deinonychus,” he said. “Too big to be Velociraptor.” He looked back at Sholtha. “Maybe even big enough for Utahraptor.” He cocked his head. “And you're supposed to have feathers!” he said defiantly.

Sholtha narrowed her eyes and snorted. She was still a bit cross about having been deprived of her feathers.

The boy stepped back slightly.

“It's okay, lad,” said Thelen. “She won't hurt you.”

“Are you sure?” said Jill.

Sholtha lowered her head to be eye level with the children, then gently placed a hand on each child's shoulder. “I ghill not harn you,” she said gently.

George gasped. “It talks!”

Sholtha cocked her head, then snorted again.

“Of course she does,” said Thelen.

“A talking dinosaur!” George squealed. He raised a hand, then paused. He looked at Thelen. “Can I...touch her?”

“I don't know,” said Thelen, “can you.”

The boy sighed. “May I?”

Thelen shrugged. “You'll have to ask her.”

George looked at Sholtha. “May I touch you?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Sholtha. “You, too,” she said to Milly. She waited while the two children ran their hands tentatively over Sholtha's hands, arms, and neck. It tickled a little and she smiled.

“I...I'm not touching that,” said Hannah.

Sholtha looked up, then stepped around George and Milly to peer at Hannah. She extended a knuckle and pressed it gently against the girl's forehead. “Touch,” said Sholtha.

Thelen groaned, then chuckled.

Hannah made an eeping sound.

“It's okay, Hannah,” said Thelen.

“But it's...it's...”

“She,” Thelen corrected.

“A lizard!” Hannah blurted.

“Repto-avian,” Thelen corrected again.

“Whatever,” Hannah grumbled.

Sholtha snorted. She'd been doing a lot of that lately. She was sure it didn't exactly set Thelen's family at ease, but surely it was better than launching into a diatribe, and definitely better than growling. Fortunately, Thelen had warned her about possible responses to her and so far, he'd been 'spot-on,' as he'd put it.

“Hana?” said Sholtha to the elder girl. “I an not your eneny.”

“How does she know English?” asked Jill. “Did you train her?”

Sholtha turned around and snorted. She'd expected that sort of question, but it still irritated her.

“She learned it by listening to people and no, I didn't train her. She's quite intelligent. Sentient, actually.”

“That's impossible,” said Jill.

“Not so much, no. Now, if you all wouldn't mind, we've had a very long trip and there's a lot to discuss. Shall we adjourn to the great room?”

Jill cocked her head. “And I suppose you'd like a spot of tea, too?”

Thelen shrugged. “Sure.”

Jill herded her children toward the light, Thelen right behind her. Sholtha squatted down and let the younglings climb onto her back, then fell in behind Thelen.

Jill looked over her shoulder. “What's she doing?” she asked nervously.

“She's joining us, of course,” said Thelen.

“What?”

“You should all get to know each other. She's been looking forward to it.”

“She's not coming in my house.”

“Why not?”

“She's a dinosaur.”

“So? We let the dog and the cats into the house. And she's promised not to eat them.” He met Sholtha's eyes. “At least, not unless they try to attack her.”

“Not unless they attack her?” said Jill dubiously.

“Yeh.” Thelen ran a hand through his hair. “Then all bets are off. But now I think of it...maybe we should keep them separated. At least for the nonce.”

“Yeah, like not bringing the...dinosaurs...into the house.”

“Her manners are better than your cousin Frank's,” Thelen pointed.

Jill eyed her husband. “That's not saying much.”

“True, but he gets to come into the house.”

“But he's family.”

“So are they,” he said, nodding to Sholtha. “Besides, I've been over it all with them. They understand that it's your territory.”

“My territory?” Jill groaned. “Fine,” she said, “but if they...claw the upholstery, they're out. Got that?”

“Fair enough.”

Sholtha felt some relief as they all walked out of the dark space and into the light. Two of the children clearly liked her, which she considered a good sign. Somehow, she felt that things might actually go halfway decently.

* * *

Robert Muldoon flopped onto his back, breathing heavily. His wife's breathing matched his own. He smiled, glad he'd made the decision to stay. There'd been times he'd nearly forgotten how the love of a good woman felt. That was a sure sign he'd been spending far too much time away from his family.

“All that time away,” said Jill, “and you still haven't lost it.”

Robert chuckled.

He heard her roll over in the dark. “Say, you haven't been...practicing while you've been away...have you?”

He chuckled again. “No, no, nothing like that.”

“But there's something bothering you, isn't there?” Despite repeated protestations to the contrary, he'd swear she could read minds.

He rolled to face her, propping an elbow on a pillow and ignoring the way the healing scabs pulled at his skin. “Do you still mean what you said about having an open marriage?”

He could almost see her frown. “Uh...yeah. But that was before you'd promised not to go gallivanting off again. The jury's still out on whether you'll keep it, but still. Though I do recall saying I might not mind...much...if you were to find the right woman.”

“Well, it turns out that I have.”

“Oh? And you decided to bring this up after sex?”

“I sure as hell wasn't going to bring it up before sex.”

Jill nearly snorted. “Okay, so who is this woman?”

“You've met her.”

“I have?”

“She's out in the great room.”

Jill sat up. “With the velociraptor?”

“She _is_ the velociraptor.”

“What?!”

“You know those recurring dreams I've had?”

“You mean the ones with Noah's Ark?”

“Those would be the ones.”

“What does that have to do with...with Sholtha?”

“Well...they're not so much dreams, as...memories.”

“Of what?”

“Of a former life.”

“Oh, you've got to be shitting me. You're telling me you're a reincarnated dinosaur? And that Sholtha was your mate?”

“Precisely, yes.”

“That's absurd!”

“You'd think so, wouldn't you?”

There was a pause. “Well...you sure as hell ain't drunk. And there's no way you'd make something like that up. So I suppose I'll have to believe you. Damned if I know why, though. Still, it'd explain a few things.”

“Like?”

“Like your passion for hunting. And your complete lack of table manners. And that you're such a beast in bed.”

He chuckled.

“Say, you haven't...you know...with her, have you?”

“Well...yes, actually, I have.”

“Oh, my God!”

“What? She's my wife.”

“No, _I'm_ your wife.”

“So is she. And technically, we were mates long before you and I even met, so technically I'm not cheating on you.”

Jill flopped onto her back and groaned. “This is strange, even for you. Hell, this is strange for anybody. But I suppose I'll still have to believe you because who makes this shit up?”

“Truth is stranger than fiction, love.”

“I s'pose.”

“I knew you'd understand.”

“The hell I do. Look, that little chat we all had this afternoon was...interesting. And Sholtha's charming...for a dinosaur. Hell, actually she's more...personable than a lot of humans I know, but still. This whole thing is weird. Like, bat-guano, Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam weird. It'll take me some time just to wrap my mind around it.”

“You and me both.”

“Hrmph.” Jill rolled over. “I'm gettin' some shut-eye. Or tryin' to. Maybe I'll be more mentally equipped to deal with this in the mornin'.”

“Indeed,” said Robert. He draped an arm over Jill. She cleared her throat in the way that meant she'd suddenly become a human hedgehog. He took the hint and laid the offending arm across his own abdomen instead. He exhaled. Yes, things were certainly nice and complicated.


	7. Chapter 7

Jill Muldoon slipped the rope bridle off the old mare and shut the gate. She watched the decrepit horse hobble into the center of the paddock, its head drooping. It just about broke her heart, doing such a thing to the poor animal. It gazed back at her half-blindly, its large, milky-brown eyes pleading with her. She turned to her husband.

“Are you sure this is necessary? Because I'm sure as hell not convinced it's remotely a good idea.”

Robert Muldoon exhaled slightly. “Love, you know as well as I do how violent nature can be.”

“But I feel like I'm enabling it.”

“That's because you are. Besides, you don't really expect four natural hunters to let someone else kill their food for them, do you?”

Jill exhaled. “Yeah, you said that. But let me remind you that I promised the Johnsons a quick death. They wanted a painless one, too, but I had to beat around the bush on that part. Still don't sit well with me.”

Rob shrugged. “Ever see a predator take down prey? And I don't mean on the Discovery Channel.”

“Duh. Cats and birds. Hawks and mice. Bears and fish.”

“Lions and gazelles? Cougars and deer?”

She shook her head. “Been here all my life an' there are still some things I ain't seen.”

“Well, I have. Trust me, this should be a lot like it.”

Jill lowered her voice and leaned closer to Rob. “Are you sure the children should be seeing this?”

“They've seen livestock butchering, haven't they?”

“Of course. And helped a few times. What about Alexis?”

“What about her?”

Jill glanced past her husband to the Murphy girl leaning casually on the fence beside Hannah. Alexis Murphy had arrived just the week before from southern California. The girl's presence on the Muldoon ranch had developed in what Jill could only describe as a whirlwind fashion. Not one week after Rob had returned home—apparently for good and with a bunch of dinosaurs in tow—she'd received a phone call from his former boss, one John Hammond. Or, rather, from some executive assistant. She'd passed the phone on to her husband, who'd taken it and promptly stepped onto the back deck.

Half an hour later, he'd stepped back inside to ask her permission to accept more company for the remainder of the summer. That had surprised her. Since when had he ever asked her permission? Yet he'd been doing it more and more since his return. Not that she minded, it was just unusual for him.

She'd initially resisted his proposal, of course. But he'd stayed on the line, briefly explaining poor Alexis Murphy's situation. The story had hit the soft spot in her heart. How could she have said no? A few days later, the girl had shown up on their doorstep, seemingly naught to her name but a single suitcase, a small backpack, and a worried expression.

In reality, she was the granddaughter of a billionaire. Yet for all the world, she sure hadn't been acting like the spoiled rich kid she supposedly was. In point of fact, Alexis had been delightful. She and Hannah had hit it off as though they'd been sisters. Which hadn't been surprising given that Alexis was only a couple of years younger than Hannah. She'd bonded with Milly, who'd immediately latched onto her. And surprisingly, she'd also hit it off with Sholtha, whom Rob said she'd met before.

“You sure she can handle this?” Jill asked. She was still a bit concerned about the girl's mental state, which still seemed a bit erratic.

“She's like me, remember? Trust me, she'll be fine.”

Jill sighed, and leaned on a fence rail. “I hope you're right. Because if I regret this, you'll never hear the end of it.” The three hatchlings, none of them any larger than a chicken, scurried under the fence. Sholtha bounded effortlessly over it. Jill flinched slightly. She still wasn't entirely sure the velociraptors weren't dangerous.

Sholtha landed on the ground, her feet sending twin puffs of dust into the air late June air. She said something to the hatchlings in their own language. It was probably instruction. For all Jill knew, it was the velociraptor equivalent of, “Here, hold my beer and watch this!”

Sholtha bent down slightly, her stiff tail wagging back and forth very slightly. The horse whinnied nervously. The hatchlings took up position around the animal, one on either side and one behind, each about a dozen of their own paces away from the animal.

Without warning, Sholtha sprang off the ground. All four of her limbs thrust out on front of her, jaws wide, a high-pitched, grating screech rising from her throat. Jill grimaced.

She practically twitched as Sholtha struck. One hind leg landed on the horse's shoulder. She pivoted slightly, planting the other on the horse's back. It let out a hideous scream, filled with pain and terror. The poor mare's legs buckled under the impact. Sholtha grabbed the horse with both clawed hands, then closed her jaws around the animal's neck, the impact driving it to the ground. It lay still, even as the hatchlings leaped and began to eat.

Jill's mouth hung open. “Oh...my...God,” she said quietly.

“And that, love,” said Rob, “is what predators do.”

“Whoa,” said George. “Look at all the blood!”

“Euw,” said Milly.

Hannah squeaked in dismay while Alexis gasped in a way Jill was unsure how to interpret. She leaned over to Rob, still unable to tear her eyes away from the wagging tails of the repto-avians feasting noisily in front of her. “And you say you and Alexis have one of those inside of you?”

“That's right, yes,” he said casually.

“How can you be so calm about that?”

“It's that or have a breakdown. Which is what would have happened to Asthriki had she not come out here.” Rob tended to use Alexis' velociraptor name. Which had been confusing at first. Yet it seemed to bother neither Rob nor Alexis. “And you still talk about it as though we're possessed by demons or alien parasites or something.”

“I'm trying. It's just...weird.”

Rob chuckled. “Tell me about it.”

“You're not going to...” She finished the question with a gesture.

Rob flinched. “No, no. Even steak tartar's a bit too far for me. I may have a Khantushakal soul, but I still have a human stomach.”

“For these small things we're grateful,” Jill said with a roll of the eyes. She looked past Rob. “Lex?” she asked.

“Alexis,” replied the girl.

“Are you...?” Jill gestured.

Alexis made a face. “Yuck! I'm a...a veggie-saurus, remember?”

“Yeah. My bad.” Perfect, she thought, the two humans who should be tearing into a raw animal, and neither wants anything to do with that. Not that she was complaining.

Jill just stared while the four velociraptors ate. The hatchlings finished first, which didn't surprise her. Minutes later, Sholtha stood up and turned around. Her mouth was covered in blood. Her grey-pink tongue lolled out of her mouth, licking whatever blood it could reach. Jill shook her head in dismay as Sholtha walked casually back to the fence and exchanged a kiss with Rob.

“That is so gross, Dad,” Hannah declared.

Rob shrugged. He looked at Jill.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Don't you even...” Rob cut her off with a kiss.

“Right,” he said when he'd let Jill up for breath. “Let's get to it.” He ducked under the fence, trotted over to the dead horse, and pulled a knife. His family and Alexis followed.

Jill wiped her mouth. “Rob, I swear to God I'm going to hurt you.”

Rob just looked over his shoulder and winked. He didn't seem to be taking her seriously. Maybe it was his way of trying to jar her mind into accepting what had happened to him.

As far as the horse was concerned, she had to admit carving up the animal for later made a certain amount of sense. What else were they going to do with a partially-eaten horse? Sure, they'd feed parts of it to the compies and struthies. Then they'd grind up the bones and feed that to the compies and struthies, too.

But there was still plenty of edible meat on its body. The idea of eating horse meat had horrified her at first. But she was slowly getting over it. It helped that there was plenty of precedent for it in other countries. Besides, otherwise the whole thing would just rot and nobody would have wanted that. She grabbed the packaging materials and followed.

* * *

Robert Muldoon leaned against the side of a pen. Morning sunlight flooded into the barn through the large door at one end. He flexed his left arm. Developing scar tissue in one part of one muscle pulled against more scar tissue in other parts of other muscles. The skin was still tight over the healing wounds, the surrounding flesh still pink and just short of angry thanks to the anti-inflammatory medicines he'd been taking as both pills and herbal teas.

He looked down at Alexis Murphy. The girl knelt in front of a two-month-old Parasaurolophus, stroking its snout. The animal made a purring sound. “I think she likes you,” he said.

Alexis looked up and beamed. “You think so?” she gushed. Just then, the animal nudged her hand in a curiously feline manner. The girl went back to stroking the animal. After a moment, “How do you do it? Deal with having a dinosaur inside you, I mean.”

Robert rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It's really not that different from not being a dinosaur.”

Alexis turned her head and shot him a look. “Yeah, right,” she said, still stroking the dinosaur. She clearly didn't believe him. “I wake up every morning in a cold sweat, screaming sometimes. I never did that before. And you don't. Why?”

“Lots of reasons. First, I'm old enough to be your father. Which means I've been around a lot. I've seen and done things that would curdle the blood of most people. Second, I adapt. Third, I've always had a Khantushakal soul. I just didn't know it. But it was always a part of me, making me into the person I am. Fourth, I was fully grown before I found out. So it doesn't really bother me.

“Sure, having to sort out the other life's memories has been rather disorienting at times. Especially first thing in the morning. Really, the hardest part has been finding the balance between loving Jill and loving Sholtha.”

Alexis considered the words for several moments. “I'm still scared,” she said.

“You're afraid your Khantushakal self is going to take over, consuming you from the inside out until there's nothing of Alexis Murphy left, is that it?”

“Well...yeah,” she said as if it were perfectly obvious.

“Didn't happen to me.”

Alexis stared at him.

“You're still you. You'll always be you. Doesn't matter what you're called. You've always had a Khantushakal soul. The only difference is that now you know about it. It would have influenced the person you're becoming whether you're aware of it or not. The truth of the matter is that you're both Alexis and Asthriki. Always have been, always will be. You're both human and Khantushaka. I know that's a little confusing and you know what?” He leaned closer to her. “It confuses me, too. Being two seemingly exclusive things at once doesn't fit well in our Western worldview. Doesn't mean it isn't so.”

He leaned back and looked at his arm. “Doesn't mean you're not in for a wild ride, though.”

“What if I don't _want_ to be in for a wild ride? I never asked to be a dinosaur!”

Robert exhaled. “Unfortunately, what we want is often irrelevant. The sooner you learn that, the better. Life's like that, no matter what you are. And like I said, you've always been a dinosaur. Besides, who ever asks to be born into their circumstances?” He chuckled. “Well, unless you're Donald Trump.”

Alexis laughed.

“See? You're improving already.”

The laugher subsided after a few more moments. “But how do you do it? Adapt? Not wake up sweating and screaming?”

“I'm afraid I'm not quite sure.” Alexis frowned, but Robert continued. “What is it that disturbs you so much?”

“Besides the memories about dinosaurs?”

Robert nodded.

“Isn't that enough?”

“Those are your memories. Just as are the ones about what you did last week. You know what I think? I think your memories are showing you things that challenge your upbringing and your mind is having to reconcile the two. But it will eventually. Tell me, when was the last time you woke up screaming?”

“Last week.”

“And before that?”

“Um...three days?”

“What about when you first returned home from Isla Nublar?”

Alexis snorted. “Every time. Sleep, nap, whatever.”

“Sounds to me like your mind is sorting things out on its own.”

“I don't know. I'm remembering things...a _lot_ of things. Stuff that would get people like Alan, Ellie, and my brother drooling way more than they were in Isla Nublar. Why do you think I keep waking up in a sweat? All these memories are coming at me fast... _real_ fast! It's like...trying to watch a movie on fast-forward.”

“You'll adapt.” He stepped over to the gate, opened it, and gestured.

“I'd better,” Alexis glowered.

The young Parasaurolophus sneezed. Alexis held up a newly-wet hand and groaned. “Euw. Again?” She glared at the dinosaur. “Are you guys gonna make me collect the whole set or something?”

Robert chuckled.

Alexis looked up at him. “It's not funny.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Have you ever had a brachiosaurus sneeze all over you?”

“Can't say I have.”

“Do you know how much...snot...one of those things has?”

“Can't say I do.”

“Well, it's a lot. And it's really gross. And if I'm gonna have every one of these dinosaurs sneeze on me, I want a couple of shop rags and a bottle of hand sanitizer.”

Robert chuckled. “You're on a farm, Alexis. It's like that, even with normal things like horses and cows.”

Alexis rolled her eyes. “Terrific,” she said sarcastically, wiping the offending, snotty hand on her overalls.

“You're strong, Alexis...Asthriki,” said Robert as he walked toward the main door, the girl at his side. “The next few years are going to be...rough, I think. Or so Jill says. Hannah hit puberty last year, so I at least like to think I know a thing or two about it. From the outside, anyway.”

“And what if I sprout feathers...or something?”

Robert chuckled.

“It's not funny!”

“No, no, of course not. You're a beautiful girl, Alexis. And you'll grow more beautiful still. And between you and me, a few feathers will only make you prettier.”

Alexis snorted. “Now you're just trying to butter me up.”

“Nonsense. Why would I do that?”

“To make me feel better?”

“Is it working?”

Alexis giggled.

“I'll take that as a yes. But really, I think you'd look quite smashing with feathers.”

He caught an eye-roll from her.

* * *

Robert Muldoon knelt next to Sholtha, his arms wrapped around her neck and his body leaning over hers. She held her snout shoved into the remaining space between his body and her own. She quivered.

A few feet away, Alexis Murphy held the two female younglings, one under each arm. They likewise had their heads shoved into her armpits. Next to Alexis, Milly held the male youngling. All three of them quivered even more violently than did Sholtha.

Another boom shook the barn. All four raptors growled. Robert flinched. He knew there was a reason he'd always hated fireworks. Why he didn't have much of an aversion to firearms he didn't know, but he'd also suspected there'd been a reason he'd preferred the bow to the rifle. The States' Independence Day explosives had always bothered him. The behavior of his fellow Khantushaki shed a little light on that.

Maybe they reminded the five of them of the loud banging sounds when the Flood waters had slammed into the Ark. Or maybe the hydrologic eruptions breaking through compressed crust or the vulcanism that followed. All he knew was that as a velociraptor, his world had been a lot noisier from the moment he'd set foot on the Ark for years after that. Maybe his reincarnated soul remembered that and his aversion to fireworks had been a subconscious manifestation of those previously locked up memories. But whey none of them seemed terribly put out about thunderstorms, he didn't know.

For hours, he, Alexis, and Milly held the velociraptors as the July Fourth festivities continued. Some of the other dinosaurs periodically moaned and grunted, followed by soothing words from George, Hannah, and Jill to those animals.

Each year, various groups and radio shows issued warnings to the effect that people should keep their pets indoors on Independence Day. And each year, someone's dog or cat would go bonkers and get run over, knock up a neighbor's animal, or disappear completely. But somehow, even with dog howling and cat yowling and the horses and cattle nearly stampeding, it all seemed to pale in comparison to the violence with which the dinosaurs had been reacting.

After a while, the explosions tapered off and everything went quiet. By then, it was halfway to dawn. Robert figured there might have been an hour, possibly two, before the eastern sky was to begin lightening. By the time they'd finished calming the animals, the velociraptors, and themselves, it was nearly daybreak.

“Hannah,” he said, “make a note. Dig a bunker before New Year.”

Hannah groaned. “I'm gonna sleep for a week,” she moaned.

“Maybe,” said Alexis, “I can get Grandpa to send an excavating team?”

Robert chuckled. “I can ask him,” he said hopefully. But given InGen's impending financial troubles in the aftermath of the Isla Nublar incident, he wasn't terribly optimistic. But one thing was for sure, he'd at least need to rent a back-hoe long-term.

“On second thought,” he said, “maybe it would be easier...and cheaper...to truck everyone up into the mountains for a couple of days.”

Jill groaned. The children cheered. Sholtha growled indignantly. But clearly, going through another night like that was out of the question. And what would they do when all the dinosaurs reached full size? Despite the fact that he'd selected mainly smaller kinds, a few of the others would grow to be enormous, triceratops and parasaurolophus particularly. He'd heard stories about how violent a bison stampede could be, but he was sure such a thing paled in comparison to even a dozen terrified triceratops charging through the middle of Pinedale.

“Can we go to bed now?” asked George.

Milly looked like she was about to literally fall asleep on her feet.

“Yeh,” said Robert. “I think that's the best idea I've heard all week.”


	8. Chapter 8

“Hi, Mom.”

Jill Muldoon looked up from her weeding. George looked back at her.

“Have you seen Dino-Mom?”

Jill raised an eyebrow, then leaned on her hoe. “Dino-Mom?”

George nodded. “Well...she's a dinosaur. And she's sorta married to Dad. So she's sort of our other mom.”

Jill shook her head slowly. Her son had a point. It was a weird point, but he did have it. “Are you done already?”

He nodded.

Jill cocked her head. She knew good and well the boy was prone not only to half-assed work, but about exaggerating about its quality. “Are you sure?” 

“Wanna see?” he asked innocently.

That was a first. “Um...sure.”

She leaned her hoe up against the split-rail fence delineating the generous truck gardens and followed George to the barn. All the ventilation louvers were open like they should have been. Jill checked each of the small dinosaur pens.

They weren't permanent by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, most of the animals were projected to outgrow them by the onset of the following summer. For the time being, however, keeping dinosaurs was not all unlike keeping familiar animals.

George had been assigned the chore of raking out all the dinosaur stalls every fourth morning after breakfast. That particular chore currently rotated among the four children. The boy had always disliked raking out the sheep stalls. Not that Jill blamed him. But he hadn't blinked an eye when she'd told him to start doing the dinosaur stalls, too. He hadn't said one way or the other, but she strongly suspected it was entirely because they were dinosaurs. Though she wondered if that would change when those droppings would one day need the same shovel used for the horse stalls.

“Nice job!” she said.

George cocked an incredulous eyebrow at her. Damn, he was getting to be more and more like his father every day. “Thought you hated this,” she said.

George shrugged. “I don't mind so much.”

“It's 'cause they're dinosaurs, right?”

George smiled. “You didn't answer my question,” he said. That boy didn't miss much either.

“I think she's inside. Why?”

“Dad wanted to see her.”

“Do I want to know?”

“He didn't say.”

Jill frowned. Rob had been working on the new steel pole barn all week. It was one of the several planned to hold the dinosaurs as they grew. They'd eventually have to range them out in the open and probably drive them far away from town late every June, but the new barns would house them while they were still small and during the winter.

Why did he need Sholtha out there? She was strong, but her lack of opposable thumbs limited her usefulness in such projects. On the other hand, Alexis was helping him, so he couldn't get into too much trouble. That, and Sholtha had been keeping a close eye on the velociraptor hatchlings.

“Come on,” Jill said, guiding her son toward the house. “I could use some iced tea anyway.”

The two of them crossed the yard and the deck. They kicked off their shoes in the mud room and stepped inside.

Hushed voices floated down the short hallway. Jill followed them to the great room and stopped. Sholtha lay couchant on the floor near the masonry stove, the hatchlings huddled against the cold stone. Milly leaned her back against the big velociraptor, Hannah kneeling next to her. Jill felt a sharp, though brief, pang of fear. Adjusting to the dinosaurs was proving to be a bit of a process. Her children were clearly having a much easier time with it.

Milly held a book in front of her, holding it so Sholtha and Hannah could see it too. And she was reading it. In short bursts. Sholtha repeated Milly's words. Occasionally, Hannah offered a correction. Jill blinked.

“Um,” she said when the girls had paused, “what are we doing?”

“We're teaching Sholtha to read!” Milly gushed.

Jill blinked. Last she checked, her youngest daughter had been struggling with that. And she was teaching someone else? “May I watch?” Jill asked.

“Sure,” said Milly.

Jill sat down on the stone shelf of the masonry stove and watched her two daughters teach a dinosaur how to read. Milly was actually quite good. Jill reached over and absently scritched one or another of the hatchlings as she watched.

After a short while, she asked, “Milly?”

“Hm?” said Milly.

“How'd you do that?”

Milly shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Your teacher said you've been struggling with reading.”

“It was...boring. This isn't.”

“I see. Why not?” Jill was sure it, like with her son, had pretty much everything to do with a dinosaur. But she decided to see where her daughter's thought process had been going.

“Sholtha asked me what all those markings were.” Milly pointed at the bookshelf. “I said they were words. She asked me how that could be. So I started showing her.”

“Then I came in from watering the flowers,” said Hannah, “and they were sitting there. Just like that.”

“Hannah's been helping a little,” said Milly. “Some of these words are big.”

“Your younglingi are zthery intelligent,” said Sholtha. “And sharning. I like then.”

Milly beamed. The whole thing melted Jill's heart.

* * *

Robert Muldoon reclined against Sholtha. He felt the purr rumbling in her chest. It was a wonderful sound. He let the recently-released memories settle into place. It was odd, really, the effect making love to Sholtha had on his memories of the other life.

He supposed it made a certain amount of sense. He'd long been told that the act of lovemaking also connected one soul to the other. He knew from experience, first with Jill, and then later with Sholtha, that it was true.  
He rolled over and kissed her again. “I love you,” he said in Khantushakal. He'd been slowly re-learning the language. Speaking it was awkward. There were some sounds his human mouth just couldn't make. Velociraptors simply had a lot more mouth and that was that. Not to mention that certain muscle groups worked a little differently between their respective species.

But he seemed to be managing well enough. Or at least his level of incomprehensibility wasn't much worse than Sholtha's attempts to pronounce English. On the other hand, there were some words that, if mispronounced in a way that only a human could, meant something completely different. But she'd been patient with him.

Sholtha smiled back at him and returned the kiss. “I love you back,” she replied in her language. It sounded a lot different than it did in English. But the intent felt the same.

He kissed her again. After a few more minutes, she rolled onto her back once again. Robert took the hint. When had he regained that kind of recovery time? Even Jill had noticed, though he tried to not to think of the one wife while making love to the other.

When he again lay next to Sholtha, feeling her rough skin against his own sweaty human pelt, both of them breathing hard, he told her about the way making love to her tended to unlock more memories.

“That is good,” she said. “It is the same with me. The Blood-Memory is strong. And unpredictable. Yet I had not thought it would speak to us in such a way.”

Robert chuckled. “I had no idea it existed,” he said, still speaking Khantushakal. “What if I had known? What would I have done? Would I have...sought it? How would I have done that?”

“You ask too many questions, alskling.”

“I believe otherwise. Asking questions is a very good way to pursue truth.”

Sholtha considered that. “That is true. Yet you seem to ask them solely to be asking them.”

Robert shrugged. “Perhaps. I have found that asking silly questions can lead to asking useful questions.”

Sholtha hrmed thoughtfully. “That idea has merit. Your human brain thinks differently than your Khantushakal brain thought. You are both human and Khantushak. It is...unusual. But perhaps that makes you better than both.”

“I would like to think so.”

“Dad? Dino-Mom? Are you up there?” It was Hannah.

Robert groaned. “I think we've been found,” he said quietly to Sholtha. He rolled over and poked his head over the edge of the hay loft. Then in English and more loudly, “Yes, Hannah?”

Sholtha righted herself, the boards creaking slightly beneath her shifting weight, and crouched next to him to also peer over the edge.

“Do I want to know?” said Hannah, unrestrained embarrassment in her voice.

“Do you have to ask?” Robert asked.

Hannah groaned. “I guess not. The, um, bare chest and being out here kinda gave you away.”

Robert chuckled. His daughter was smart, smart enough that her teenage hormones didn't get in the way...much. “So what brings you out here at this hour?”

“It's mid-afternoon, Dad. Aren't you hot up there?”

He shrugged. “Sholtha seems to think so.”

Hannah made a mock gagging sound and Robert rolled his eyes. No matter what Hannah thought about her dad having a dinosaur wife, and no matter what she thought about that dinosaur, he knew it would be a long time, if ever, before she got over the revulsion associated with the idea of her parents, either of them, having sex. He supposed that was just as well.

“The sweat cleans out the pores, Hannah.”

“Yeah, but you can do that by yourself.” A pause. “Never mind. Mom wanted me to remind you that the sheetrock guy's supposed to be here in ten minutes.”

Robert groaned. “Right. Sorry. Thank you. We'll be right down.”

Sholtha moved slightly. Then the boards creaked loudly and her whole body surged past him, then dropped over the edge. She landed with a thump.

“Show-off,” said Hannah.

Robert rolled back out of sight, then pulled a scruffy towel off a peg. He wiped the excess sweat and the straw clinging to him before pulling his clothes back on and climbing down the ladder.

The three of them walked outside. Halfway across the yard, he glanced over at the pile of broken gypsum drywall next to the compost heap. He groaned. At his daughter's unsaid question, he said, “I'm beginning to think we're singlehandedly keeping the hardware store in business.”

“Are you sure we really need walls?” asked Hannah.

Robert stopped and looked at his daughter. She looked back. “What?” she said. “The velociraptors keep tearing up the walls and we keep ripping them out and putting them back together. But then they rip them apart again.”

Robert scratched his head. Hannah had a point.

Alexis trotted up just then. “Rob...Thelen...I think the truck's coming.”

Hannah exhaled. “We're just throwing more money away,” she fumed.

“I think Hannah's right,” said Alexis. “What's wrong with just tearing the walls out for good and opening up the floor plan? I know Jill says the gypsum's good for the veggie garden, but isn't it lots cheaper to buy, like, dolomite in bags for that?”

“They hazthe a toint,” said Sholtha. “It is a good idea. Ghe should do it.”

Robert groaned. The girls were right. “Fine. I'll send it back. Jill won't like it, though.”

“Yes, she will,” said Alexis. “She just doesn't know it yet.”

Robert cocked an eyebrow at her.

“It happened back home. Besides, open floor plans are really popular these days. Trust me, you'll all like it.”

Robert shook his head slowly, then stalked out toward the driveway. He met the delivery truck while it was still in the road. “The girls just talked me into changing my mind.”

The driver looked at him like he'd lost his mind. “What?”

“We're...going to just open up the floor plan. So...I guess you'll have to take it back.”

“You know there's a restocking fee, don't you?”

“Yeh, yeh. Just...hold on.” He rubbed his chin pensively. After a few moments, “On second thought, I might be able to use it for something else.” He waved the guy into the drive. Ten minutes later, he was the proud owner of a few dozen more sheets of gypsum board.

“Um,” said Alexis after the lorry had left, “I thought you agreed with us.”

“I do. But if I'm to pay for it anyway, I'd rather have it. Besides, I may be able to use it somewhere else. One of the barns, perhaps. But I think I do like your idea about the floor plan. And this...” He nodded to the drywall. “...gives me a little more time to sell the idea to Jill.”

* * *

Robert Muldoon stripped off his muddy Wellies and stepped out of a pouring Wyoming thunderstorm and into the service porch of his home. He shivered as he shrugged out of his oilskin coat and hung it on a peg.

The room was segregated from the rest of the house and little more than an enclosed space attached to the rest of the building. The bare exterior boards showed between the rough-cut two-by-four studs, the gaps between them chinked with the original daub. As such, it had no insulation.

He stepped up onto a wooden platform, then opened a heavy door, and thence into the warm interior. He smiled. In many respects, there wasn't much left of the original structure. The whole thing had been poorly built in the first place. He'd seen old photos of the pathetic cabin that had once been where he stood. While it had apparently been fine for the first homesteaders, subsequent owners had vehemently disagreed.

Multiple additions and renovations had been made to the place, almost always in a sort of hodgepodge manner. Jill's family had already owned the property when Robert had met her. But serious rebuilding hadn't begun until the first year of their marriage.

Between hunting expeditions and traveling, and around their children, the two of them had ruthlessly torn the place apart, reconstructing elements they liked, eliminating ones they didn't, until the house had been transformed into what could only be called their architectural offspring. The recent arrivals had necessitated the most recent revisions. Robert had to admit the new open floor plan to be quite positive.

He stopped. The place was uncharacteristically quiet. Then he heard low voices punctuated by some giggling. That was always a good sound, one he much preferred to what he'd long recognized as the usual sniping between his children, sniping that had all but vanished since June. He smiled.

He walked toward the dining area and looked through where an interior wall used to be and into the great room. He leaned against a beam and watched for a bit. Finally, he said, “So, what are you ladies doing on such a fine summer day?”

His question was met with various giggles and snorts of derision. “Oh, daddy,” said Milly, “you're so silly!”

“Fine summer day?” Hannah echoed dubiously.

Robert chuckled.

“You know,” said Alexis, with a slight roll of her eyes, “if I'd known about the climate out here, I might have changed my mind about coming.”

“Don't be silly, Alexis,” said Jill brightly. “You know Wyoming doesn't have climate. It just has weather. Especially in the summer.”

Alexis laughed.

Robert supposed they were right. Summer weather in Wyoming could be very fickle. Not that English weather was any less so, but Wyoming seemed a lot more cantankerous about it, as though the place held a grudge. “I suppose you're right. But that doesn't answer the question.”

“Girl bonding!” gushed Milly.

“I see,” said Robert.

Milly thrust out a hand, palm downward, displaying freshly-painted nails. Then she nudged Sholtha. The velociraptor rolled her eyes slightly, then displayed her own freshly-painted claws.

Robert's eyebrows shot up. Sholtha chuffled. “You are sthunny, alskling,” she said.

“Do you know why velociraptors paint their claws red?” Milly asked.

Robert smiled at his daughter. “No, Milly, why do they paint their claws red?”

“To hide in strawberry patches.”

“Is that so?”

Milly nodded vigorously. “Have ya ever seen a velociraptor hiding in a strawberry patch?”

“No, can't say that I have.”

“See how well it works!”

Everyone laughed.

Alexis bounced up from her patch of floor next to Sholtha and thrust a drawing pad at Robert. He peered at it. Across the page was drawn a series of stylized figures in an artistic tradition that seemed vaguely familiar. There was a man, a woman, a bipedal dinosaur, two girls, a boy, another girl, and three more dinosaurs. “Hmmm. Just because?” he asked.

“It's us,” said Alexis flatly.

“Of course it is.” A pause. “Actually, that's quite clever. Do you plan to do more with it than stick it to the ice box?”

Alexis nodded. “You know those decals you see on people's cars?”

“The ones with their families?”

“Uh-huh!” said Alexis excitedly.

Robert took another look at the girl's drawing and laughed. “That's a splendid idea!” He looked from the drawing to Alexis, then to each of the faces about the room. They really had become a family and it gave him warm fuzzies, as his wife was so fond of putting it.

He mused on that for a few moments. While having velociraptors in the family was a challenge, there were certain advantages. The female younglings wouldn't want body piercings, makeup, nylons, or high heels. He wouldn't have to worry about their dates trying anything nefarious with them. He wouldn't have to worry about the male youngling driving the car too fast or knocking up his girlfriend. None of them would ever get hooked on drugs, get arrested for DUI, become unwed parents, or any number of other worries that tended to weigh on a parent's mind. On the other hand, there was that pesky lysine deficiency, and the ever-present worry about being discovered and having scientists and/or lawyers descend on the ranch and leaving the Egg-Mother knew what sort of chaos in their wake.

“Oh, and Dear?” said Jill.

“Mm?”

“I'm pregnant.”

Robert's world contracted as he forgot about Alexis' drawing. The family it portrayed, however, though already foremost on his mind, jarred into sharp focus. “What?” he asked, instantly feeling more than a bit foolish.

“I'm pregnant,” Jill repeated.

Robert glanced back at the drawing, only then noticing a baby drawn next to the three small dinosaurs. He looked back at his wife. “Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, the conviction strong in her voice. “Ob-gyn confirmed and everything.”

“Wow,” he said, making no effort to control the awe in his voice. “Um...when?”

“Early February.”

Robert quickly did the math. That meant she'd probably conceived—at least technically—the night he'd returned from Isla Nublar. The very same night night he'd told her about him and Sholtha. Unless... “It, erm, is mine, innit?”

Jill snorted. “Robert William Muldoon! I'm offended!”

He flinched. “Sorry, love. Had to ask. I'd been gone and, well...”

“Well, I didn't do that. If it'll make you feel any better, I can get a paternity test.”

He smiled. “That won't be necessary.” He walked over to her and leaned down, then paused. “You...are keeping it, aren't you?”

Jill scowled. “Robert!” She sounded horrified. “How could you even think that?”

He grimaced.

“Besides,” she continued, “if I were inclined to do that, I'd have done it already and you'd never have known about it.”

He cocked his head.

“Well, not for a while.”

There was a long, pregnant pause. Then Robert grabbed his wife and kissed her soundly, passionately. She leaned into it. He felt her slip her tongue into his mouth. He returned the favor, ignoring his daughters' protests. Without breaking the kiss, he pulled Jill to her feet and gently guided her across the room. Only then did the kiss break.

“Would y'all excuse us for a bit?” said Jill. She yipped slightly as Robert picked her up.

He grinned at his wife, barely aware of the trilling sound Sholtha made behind him. His left arm pinched a little as he carried Jill down the short hall to their bedroom.

* * *

Robert Muldoon opened the passenger door, then helped Jill out of their Ford F-350 pickup. The contrast between the decidedly redneck vehicle and his wife's elegant, black evening wear had not been lost on him all evening. She looked just as ravishing at the end of their evening as she had just before they'd left a few hours before.

They'd gone to eat at Pitchfork Fondue. Not that there were that many eateries in Pinedale. He remembered a few years before when Jill had remarked upon there only being redneck eateries in all of County Sublette. So she'd been delighted when the fondue place had opened. But they hadn't had either a chance or an occasion to patronize the restaurant until recently.

They had plenty to celebrate. There was the new pregnancy, of course. Jill was still elated that Robert had returned home to stay. He'd started guided hunting trips into the adjacent mountains and plains, but never for more than a weekend. Above all, he hadn't been killed by dinosaurs during his ill-fated stay on Isla Nublar. Just about everything was looking up.

He offered her his arm. They stood there for a few moments, looking at the house and the mid-August sunset beyond it. “It's beautiful, isn't it?” he said. “We never just look at it anymore.”

“The house or the sunset?”

“Yes.” They both laughed at that. “Shall we?”

Jill's smile made Robert's heart flutter. He was glad she could still do that to him. Somehow, he could tell she was thinking much the same thing. He led her up the walk, her heels clicking on the flagstones. Somehow, despite his opinions on the impracticality of high-heels, he'd always liked the sound they made. He wondered it if had anything to do with the similarity to the sound of velociraptor claws on rock. Maybe...but maybe not. He was less sure it mattered.

The front door swung easily inward. Jill paused in the threshold, enough for Robert to have that great view he'd always loved. She looked over her shoulder and smiled again. He followed her lines down her back, its skin partially exposed by her low-cut dress, her tight buttocks and shapely hips, down to the curves of her slender thighs and calves. She really did look far too good for a thirty-eight-year-old mother of three...no, four. She stuck her tongue out slightly between her teeth and disappeared into the foyer.

He followed her and shut the door. She laid her purse on the entry table, then, “race ya!” She took off across the house. Robert let her have a bit of a head start, then began to run after her. He'd barely gone two steps when he heard her clatter to a halt. After a beat, she shrieked.

Robert skidded on the stone floor, nearly colliding with her. He followed her gaze. All the children, Sholtha, and the younglings sat in the great room. Every one of them stared at Jill. And all three of his own offspring held their left arms, right hands clamped around their wrists. Dark red blood oozed out between their fingers. That could only mean one thing.

Jill just stood there, on the verge of hyperventilation.

“Oh, alsklinga,” said Robert, “was that really necessary?”

“Yes,” Sholtha replied.

“You didn't pressure them, did you?”

“It was my idea,” said George. Robert wasn't surprised. His son, like most boys, had always been a nut on dinosaurs. Robert would probably have bet real money that his son wanted to be a dinosaur, not the least because he'd actually said so some years before. Then the boy had realized that wasn't possible, at which time he'd declared he wanted to be a paleontologist. And at the age of seven, he'd even been able to pronounce it.

But since Robert had returned home with dinosaurs in tow and on the heels of his own revelation, George had revived his former dream. They boy's expression told Robert that those dreams had again been dashed. “That's okay, son,” he said.

“No it's not,” said George. He looked on the verge of tears. “I wanted to be a dinosaur! It's not fair!”

Oh, dear, thought Robert. He noticed that Milly, however, had gone far beyond simply the verge of tears. While she wasn't audibly crying, tears streaked her cheeks. Alexis held Milly's quivering body.

He stepped over to her and knelt down. “What's wrong, Milly, dear?” he asked. He was pretty sure the answer would have something to do with her wrist hurting like a bugger.

“I...I...I'm a vlosraptr!” she wailed.

Robert blinked. He certainly hadn't been expecting that. He glanced at Sholtha and raised an eyebrow. Sholtha nodded.

“So...who are you, Milly?”

Milly stared.

“She's my cousin Alithie,” said Alexis.

“You are?” said Robert to Milly.

Jill groaned behind him. “You have got to be shitting me,” she said.

“The Dlood-Nenory does not lie,” said Sholtha, “ezther.”

Robert looked back over his shoulder. “She has a point, love.”

“This is getting weirder all the time,” Jill moaned.

His wife wasn't kidding. His own daughter was his mate's mother's brother's daughter. “You might be a Redneck dinosaur if...” ran through his mind. Alithie had been twelve years old when he and Sholtha had hatched. Which meant she was both older and younger than he was. That was also true of Alexis who, as Asthriki, had been four when he'd hatched. Somehow, though, it seemed stranger since his daughter was involved.

But it was obvious what had happened. George had been chomping at the bit and had convinced Sholtha to taste him. Hannah had refused to be outdone by her younger brother and had likewise insisted. And Milly, not wanting to be left out, also begged for it. Then Sholtha, having detected Milly's velociraptor soul, had proceeded to Awaken her. Alexis had provided moral support for the younger girl.

The rest of the evening involved several flavors of ice cream and copious support for Milly and her questions. Robert remembered that Alithie had hatched one clutch of eggs and possibly one or two others. He wasn't looking forward to dealing with Milly's reaction whenever the Blood-Memory should reveal _that_ to her.

But for the nonce, they'd enjoy their ice cream and he'd brace for the coming impact, as it were.

* * *

Sholtha sat on her haunches near the bank of the Green River, basking in the warm afternoon sun. Black Butte rose behind her. Nearby, the younglings hunted small fish in the shallows of a gravel bar. Beneath a small grove of junipers, a wooden table was arrayed with what she'd come to recognize as plates, flatware, and serving dishes. The latter were piled with various types of human food unloaded from those strange human-made containers called Tupperware.

She smiled. It was yet another of the humans' holidays that revolved around food. Curiously, it was called Labor Day. Which, as near as she could tell, had very little to do with work. Humans really were quite strange. But she'd started to like them. Well, at least the ones in her family. In fact, she'd come to love them and it made her feel wonderful.

She'd made a lot of progress since that day on Isla Nublar. She'd escaped the raptor paddock bent on killing every last human on the planet. Since then, not only had she mostly lost that desire, she'd also come to realize just how intimidating of a task that would have been.

Asthriki leaned up against her. The pendant she'd made from the raptor claw she'd cut from one of the fallen bounced briefly against her chest. “So,” she said cheerily, “why are you so happy?”

Sholtha replied in her own language. “Despite certain...oddities...this new life is good.”

Asthriki giggled. “Oddities? Sholtha, you're so funny!”

Sholtha cocked her head slightly. Sometimes she wished she could perform that cocked-eyebrow gesture the humans did. “Why am I funny?”

Asthriki replied in Khantushakal, or as best as she could with her human mouth. “Because. I do not know why you amuse me. Maybe it is because I remember how you were when you were a youngling. You were as funny then as you are now. It was not the same, of course. You amused me then and you amuse me now.” She switched back to English. “Maybe it's because of your cool personality.”

Sholtha chuckled. “Everyone is adjusting well. Thelen and Jill. Their children. And you. Especially you. You remember much. Our language, our ways.”

“Well...” Asthriki switched to Khantushakal. “I have the Blood-Memory to thank for that.” She made a face. “Why does so much of what we do center so much on blood? It is...yucky.”

Sholtha chuffled. “You have blood inside your body, yes? Yet you do not have a problem with that.”

Asthriki replied in English. “Well, yeah, but it's supposed to be there.”

Sholtha nodded, then tapped her sister's sternum with a claw. “What you are and what you have are in here. That is as it should be. Blood is life.”

“So you've said.”

“You humans have that metaphor as well, do you not?”

Asthriki nodded. “I understand,” she said in her old language.

“You have learned very quickly. How much the Blood-Memory is responsible for that I do not know. Yet I believe you will soon know and remember more of our ways, our stories, and our history than the rest of us combined. For that reason, I am minded to make you Ard-Ellr'alna.”

Asthriki's eyes widened. “You...you're not serious,” she said in English.

“Of course I am. What say you?”

The girl breathed out through her lips. In Khantushakal, she said, “I accept. But should we not perform the ceremony for that?”

Sholtha cocked her head. “We have a ceremony?”

“We have a ceremony for everything. Do you not remember?”

“I was six months old when we parted and the waters came. Do you not remember that?”

“Apologies, Ard-Righa. Of course I remember. That is the one thing I wish I could forget.”

“That is why I wish you to be Ard-Ellr'alna.”

Asthriki raised her index finger and tugged on her lower lip, apparently an unconscious gesture associated with thinking. Then she smiled. “Yes!” she said in English. Then, “But I think it should be...um...provisional. 'Cause I don't remember the whole ceremony yet. So...” She looked over toward Thelen. “Um, Jill? Would you mind terribly if I were to come back some time?”

Jill smiled. “Of course not! When did you have in mind?”

Asthriki frowned slightly. “I'm not sure yet. I don't know how long it'll take me to remember what I have to remember. And I have school. So...Spring Break? Or next summer?”

“I think that could be arranged. Why?”

“We have a ceremony, but I don't remember it all yet.”

Jill frowned pensively. Before she could ask, Alithie blurted, “Asthriki's gonna be Ard-Ellr'alna!”

Jill blinked. “Milly! You talked! In English!”

“She is?” said Thelen.

“Whoa!” said George.

“Milly talked!”

Hannah elbowed her brother. “Do you even know what that is?”

“Do you?” he countered.

“No, and neither do you.”

“Do too.”

“I don't think either of you know,” said Jill. “Because I have no idea either. And Milly talked! Are any of you listening to me?” She paused, then looked at Sholtha.

Everyone looked at Alithie. “What?” she said in Khantushal.

The girl had been speaking only in Khantushakal ever since the morning after her Awakening. No one knew why, though Thelen's leading theory had been that it had had something to do with the trauma and that the mind of a seven-year-old girl just wasn't capable of handling it all.

“She just said something in English,” said Jill.

“So?” said Alithie in English.

“But Milly, honey, you've been speaking Khantashakal for a couple of weeks.”

“Was not.”

Sholtha thrummed pensively. Was Alithie unaware that she'd been speaking another language? Sholtha was no expert, but she was fairly certain that if her cousin was going to be alternating languages without realizing it, that was going to cause problems very soon.

“Oh, dear,” said Thelen. He knelt down in front of his daughter. “Milly, do you mean to say that you can speak English and Khantushakal, but you're not sure which one you're speaking?”

Alithie shrugged. “Dunno,” she said in English. “I thought I was just talking.” Then in Khantushakal, “But then you all looked at me as though I had lost my mind. It frightened me.”

“Did anything else frighten you?” Thelen asked in English.

Alithie nodded. “Dreams,” she said, still in Khantushakal. “I dreamed about my other self.”

Thelen ran a hand through his hair. “Milly...Alithie,” he said in English, “here's what I want you to do. You need to tell me everything you dream. Because those are actually your memories from your other life. It's very important to talk about it because your brain and your mind need to process it and talking about it helps that. Will you do that for me?”

Alithie nodded. “Okay,” she said in English.

Jill cleared her throat. “Okay, I'll bite,” she said. “What's an Ard...E...what was that?”

“Ard-Ellr'alna,” said Asthriki.

“Which is...?”

“It's the person who remembers.”

“Basically,” said Thelen, “the Ard-Ellr'alna is responsible for keeping the stories, history, customs, lore, and so on of the Khantushaki.”

Jill raised an eyebrow. “Interesting.”

“I know!” Asthriki gushed. That made Sholtha smile. She was glad her sister was so excited about the opportunity.

She recalled that it was an important job, nearly as important as Ard-Righa, and that there had been, from what she remembered overhearing from her parents and others, some difficulty from time to time finding someone who could do the job adequately. She also vaguely recalled some mention of trying to develop a writing system such as the humans had at the time, but the idea had always been abandoned for one reason or another.

“Well,” said Jill, “we're proud of you...I think. In the meantime, though, I think lunch is ready.” She indicated the table. “Sholtha, would you get the younglings from the river?”

“Should we kill our own lunch?” Sholtha asked. They usually did, but the humans sometimes had other ideas.

“Well,” said Jill, “we packed enough for you, but if there's anything in the vicinity, go for it.”

“Just,” said Hannah, “maybe eat it quietly? And behind us so we don't have to watch?”

Sholtha groaned. “Terhats,” she said noncommitally. She felt like wiping the blood from whatever her catch would happen to be all over Hannah just to be contrary. But she probably wouldn't. She'd had a few discussions with Thelen about his daughter and his verdict was that the girl wasn't being deliberately difficult. Sholtha didn't remember her kind having those sorts of hormonal-related behavioral quirks, but she'd relented anyway.

Lunch for the hatchlings turned out to be a ground squirrel, a raven, and a rattlesnake. Hers was a badger. She herded her charges back to the juniper grove where the humans prepared to eat.

“Sholtha?” said Hannah. “It's okay. You can eat with us. I was just being...mean. I realize we just have different ways of eating. I know it here...” She pointed to her head. “...even though here...” She pointed to her heart. “...still tells me it's gross. But Dad says people in other countries eat things we think are gross, too, so it's all good.”

Sholtha smiled and joined the humans at the table, though she kept her prey on the ground out of courtesy.

“Jill?” said Thelen. “Would you like to say grace?”

Jill nodded, then thanked their Heavenly Father, as she put it, for their food, their company, her unborn child, the weather that day, and for bringing them all together. She asked blessings upon the children of both species, the baby, and requested that Alithie's language problem be resolved before she had to start preschool.

“Amen,” said Jill and the humans echoed it. “Sholtha? Is there a blessing your people do?”

Sholtha vaguely remembered. She turned to Asthriki. “Ghat say you, Ard-Ellr'alna?”

Asthriki nodded. “There is,” she said in English. Then she closed her eyes and held her hands palms upward, fingers curled. Sholtha and the younglings mimicked the pose. Asthriki sang, a beautiful progression of wordless notes which merged into a song of thanks and worship to the Egg-Mother. She ended with a brief ululation which Sholtha and the younglings joined.

“That was beautiful!” said Jill. “Alexis, you might consider a career in music.”

Asthriki sighed. “Gotta get through junior high first. And then high school. Who knows how being Khantushaka is going to complicate all of that? But you know,” she said, glancing at Sholtha, “I think if I do wind up sprouting feathers, I can deal with it. I might not like it and having this dinosaur self might turn me into Bitch Queen of the Universe for a few years, but I think I can deal with it. Don't think I could have said that before coming out here. So...thank-you everyone. Each of you has really helped a lot. I just hope I've been even half as cool for you as you all have been for me. Just thought I'd say that.”

Sholtha smiled, as did everyone else.

After a few minutes, Asthriki put down a bare chicken bone and turned to Sholtha. “Sholtha? Would you be offended if I went back to being a veggie-saurus when I get back home? Or at least a mostly-veggie-saurus?”

Sholtha cocked her head and swallowed the bite she'd been chewing. “Ghy?”

“Why would you be offended, or why am I going back to veggie-saurus-ness?”

“Doth.”

“Well...not sure about the offending you part. Just that I remember you being confused about me not eating meat. Though I've kind of gone to eating a little of it. Must come from all this country life stuff. But the vegetarian thing...that's mostly from my mom.”

Sholtha grunted in acknowledgement. She remembered the discussion she'd had with her sister about it. “And you do not wish to offend you mother, yes?” she said in Khantushakal.

Asthriki nodded. “It is so,” she replied in the same tongue.

“Then that is sthine,” Sholtha said in English. “You nust do ghat you nust to de at teace ghith your sthanily and to sthind you dalance, Asthriki.”  
Asthriki smiled and bit into a slice of watermelon.


	9. Chapter 9

Jill Muldoon snatched her hands back from a sudden snapping of jaws. She exhaled in frustration...again.

“Would you hold still, dammit?!” She was rapidly losing her composure. She hadn't eaten anything since dawn and her blood sugar was crashing. What should have been a routine dental exam and teeth-cleaning had turned into a production number, complete with jazz-hands.

The velociraptor growled at her.

“And stop that!” Jill snapped. “Look, I don't like going to the dentist either. No one does, not even dentists. We discussed this. We'd have been done an hour ago if you'd just quit moving!”

The dinosaur growled again.

“What did I just say? Seriously, Sholtha, you are, without a doubt, the absolute worst patient I've ever had. I've had unsedated horses better behaved than you. You're smarter than all of them put together. Hell, you're at least as smart as half the humans I've met and far smarter than the other half. Now, sit still and let me finish!”

A snort of resignation, then the jaws opened again, revealing their partially cleaned teeth.

“Thank-you,” said Jill indulgently. She went back to work. A couple of minutes later, the jaws snapped again.

“Dammit, Sholtha!” Jill was seriously beginning to think Hannah had been right about investing in titanium gauntlets specifically for working on velociraptors.

“That hurt,” Sholtha replied.

“Yeah, I know. Why do you think everyone hates going to the dentist?” Jill drew a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it back out, allowing the extra oxygen to calm her. “Look, I'm sorry. I'm not your enemy, Sholtha. Believe it or not, I like you. For all that you're my husband's dinosaur lover. Which is still...really weird, don't get me wrong.

“But I'm also a professional. Which means I don't let my feelings for my patients' humans...or my patients themselves in your case...interfere with my job. And even if I had it in for you, don't you think I'd be passive-aggressive about it? I could easily be spiteful and go all malpractice on your ass. It would be easy to 'accidentally' pull a tooth, or clean your mouth half-assed, or a dozen other things that would deprive you of all your teeth within a couple of years. Or I could tranq your ass and drill, claiming emergency root canal.

“But despite my misgivings about your relationship with my husband, I'm actually glad you're here. You've been good for my family. George voluntarily reads books now. Hannah's paying attention in science class. Milly's apparently sorted out her language problem. All their grades are up across the board. They hardly ever have to be told more than once to do their homework or their chores and sometimes they even do them without being asked at all.

“They're outdoors nearly all the time, getting fresh air and exercise. All three of them eat their veggies without complaining...much...get more than enough protein, and nearly all their sugar intake comes from fresh fruit. They haven't been sick once all autumn and all of those mysterious symptoms of theirs have cleared up. They're healthy and alert. George hasn't touched his computer games since the day Rob brought you all home and he doesn't seem to care that it's impacted his 'geek cred' with his friends. Though on the other hand, living with a bunch of dinosaurs more than makes for it, apparently, but still. And I have you to thank for all that.

“I'm still not terribly happy about the lot of you rampaging around the house and breaking things every other day, mind you. The neighbors are still suspicious about their missing pets. The Forest Service rangers are scratching their heads over the bite marks you all leave on carcasses up in the Bighorns. I still lay awake some nights, trying not to think about whatever you and my husband may or may not be doing out in the barn. And Rob's still afraid some guys in lab coats or black suits are going to show up and try to take you away for 'study.' Or lawyers with briefcases full of court orders ready to reclaim their 'property.' Strangely enough, I can live with all that. Now, open up.”

Sholtha sighed, but complied and Jill went back to work.

After a couple of minutes, “And I strongly recommend you stop eating roadkill. You've chipped another tooth, which means I'm going to have to drill...again. And so help me, I _will_ tranq you for that.”

Sholtha made a disappointed groan which sounded somewhat canine.

“Yeah, I know,” Jill responded as she worked on another of Sholtha's intimidating, dagger-like teeth. “You're a scavenger, too, and roadkill's free food. I get that.”

Feeding a fully-grown velociraptor and three juveniles was proving to be twenty times more challenging than feeding a teenager. Jill spent much of her off-time and lunch breaks looking for sources of cheap meat. That usually meant dying or freshly dead farm animals. Fortunately, her work as a large-animal veterinarian usually brought those sources to her, so to speak.

At first, she'd been quite shocked at the whole thing. The first day she'd brought home a terminally ill horse would always stick in her mind. She'd never forget the way Sholtha and the hatchlings had circled the weak and terrified animal, and then promptly torn it apart right in front of her. Fortunately, the poor beast had probably suffered a fatal heart attack before the first claw had struck, but it had still screamed, albeit briefly.

But even such animals cost something, either in straight-up cash to the tune of on average of a hundred dollars each, or in lost revenue from what would have been a paid euthanasia. Fortunately, velociraptors didn't have to eat more than once each week or so and in between feedings, they'd kept busy snacking on the local starling population. Which was something that would have gone over quite well with the local environmentalists had they known.

Roadkill, on the other hand, was completely free, if one ignored the cost of the gas it usually took to drive around looking for it. Unfortunately, roadkill often had gravel it it, and sometimes buck shot from someone's poor aim with a rifle.

“And I know the vultures and crows eat it,” Jill continued, “but they don't have teeth, so they don't really chew. The point is, all the crap that gets into it is tearing up your mouth. I know your teeth can grow back. Theropod and all. Which I guess sort of negates what I said earlier about neglecting your teeth. But that has limitations, including, but not limited to, breaking them off on rocks. That can damage the roots and then they really won't grow back. Not to mention bone infections. I can't stress that enough. And don't get me started on what all those broken teeth will do to your guts. You ain't a shark, even if you sometimes act like one. If you don't take care of your teeth, you'll eventually be drinking beef shakes through a straw.”

Sholtha growled again, the one that meant “that would make me irritable and really suck.” Jill had been learning how to interpret the nuances between the velociraptor's different growls. She shook her head slowly and resumed work. “I know, I know. You don't have to like it, but you do have to deal with it.”

* * *

Sholtha lay in the Great Room, watching the flames flicker in the central masonry stove. She smiled. In the few months since she'd arrived, she'd come to call it a new home. It was still strange, though. Far different from the one she'd known before the Deep Sleep. And the humans were just as strange. She'd come to like many of them, despite their strange customs.

A few of their sacred days had passed.

There was the one they called Independence Day, which had been quite horrific. Then Labor Day which, as near as she could tell, had absolutely nothing to do with labor.

There was Halloween. Which made no sense at all. Everyone had dressed up in costumes and wandered about town asking for sweets. The latter part was quite odd, considering all the fuss Jill had made over proper dental care. Then people had remarked over and over on how Sholtha had been wearing the best dinosaur costume they'd ever seen. She'd kept quiet, on Thelen's advice, though she'd still found the whole thing quite baffling.

There was Thanksgiving. It was supposed to mark an important event in the history of the local human tribe they called the United States of America. In reality, however, it revolved around eating. Which was something Sholtha definitely understood and embraced with much enthusiasm.

She glanced over at a small tree that stood near an exterior window. Earlier that evening, it had been illuminated with a string of what appeared to be fireflies. Oh, how she missed those. They'd been everywhere the weeks before she'd been parted from her parents. Though Jill had said they still lived in a place called the Deep South.

Beneath the tree sat many small, brightly-colored packages. That was something that had puzzled her ever since she'd arrived. The humans had a most peculiar preoccupation with possessions.

She sighed. She lifted herself off the floor slightly, then reached down and ever so gently pulled her own most prized possession from within her body. She carefully rested it in front of the fire. She smiled. She should have laid it two months before and incubated it properly. Yet she'd been afraid, afraid of what both Thelen and Jill would think, afraid of the unknown. And so it had been with great difficulty and a certain amount of discomfort that she'd held the precious egg within her ovaduct the entire time.

She smiled. It wouldn't be long. So she wrapped herself around it, adding her own body heat. She closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Robert Muldoon awoke at dawn. He smiled to himself. He'd had a good dream, one about raising Sholtha's first clutch of younglings following the Flood. It had, of course, not been a dream, but more memories. He looked at his bedroom window at the pale winter light washing through it. He felt happy.

A knock sounded at the door. That was funny. He'd have expected the children to burst in during twilight as they usually did on Christmas morning. “Daddy?” came Milly's voice.

“Yes, Milly, dear?” he answered. He cringed inwardly as Jill stirred beside him. He hadn't wanted to wake her. At least, not in its own right.

“Come out, Daddy,” she said.

Something pricked at the back of his mind. “What is it?”

George's voice replied, “Dino-Mom laid an egg.”

He sat up.

“And it's moving!” said Hannah.

Robert shot out of bed, suddenly alert. Jill sat up, too. “What is it?” she mumbled.

“You're not going to believe it,” he said.

“What's got you so worked up on Christmas morning?”

“The kids say Sholtha laid an egg. And it's apparently viable.”

“What?!” Jill blurted.

Robert pulled on a terry robe. “I'd better go see,” he said.

“Not without me, you're not,” said Jill as she scooted out of bed.

Robert pulled open the door, slightly warmer air gently rushing into the room. Clearly, someone had started a fire...or had kept one going. He looked down at the concerned faces of his children, dimly lit by the sunlight behind him.

Milly grabbed his hand as George and Hannah turned and trotted down the hall. Robert almost had to struggle to keep up even with his youngest. She was certainly excited, perhaps even more so than on Christmases past. Robert followed his children down the stairs, his wife on his heels. As he descended, he could see Sholtha and the younglings all crowded around the masonry stove.

Only when he'd reached the lower level did he see what so captivated their attention. Between Sholtha and the stove lay a single, elliptical egg a little smaller than an ostrich's. Sholtha looked up, met Robert's eyes and smiled broadly.

To anyone else, it would have seemed unsettlingly predatory with all those visible teeth. But to Robert, it was an expression of joy.

She looked back at the egg as Robert and his human family crowded around. The egg rocked back and forth on its own accord. His heart pounded in his chest. After a few more minutes, the egg cracked near one end. He resisted the urge to help the small hatchling inside.

George reached out to it. Sholtha growled slightly. “Sorry, George,” said Robert, “but the hatchling needs to push out by itself.”

The baby inside continued to push until first a head peeked out. It swiveled around and locked eyes with Sholtha, who grinned ecstatically. Then it looked around again and locked eyes with Robert. He felt his heart melt. The little one shouldered its way out of the egg and after what felt like twenty agonizing minutes, the hatchling crouched damp and shivering on several shards of egg shell.

It was a scene Robert remembered seeing many times. Each time he loved it. He fell in love with the newly-emerged creature immediately.

The trembling figure was, at most, half a meter long uncurled. Its head bore a short snout and large, front-mounted grass-green eyes and small earlobes and was mounted on top of its spine like a human's. It carried its stubby arms to the side like humans, but with raptor-like shoulders, the hands three-fingered with an opposable thumb, all bearing tiny claws. The legs would be powerful, the joints like a raptor's, but with slightly more humanoid feet bearing four toes and a strong rear toe that jutted out from the heel. It had a tail that hung down halfway to its knees.

“Um...Rob?” said Jill nervously. “What is that?”

“It's...our baby,” he replied, his voice full of awe. “Sholtha's and mine.”

“I thought that wasn't possible.”

“Apparently, it is.”

Hannah pointed to something. “Is that what I think it is?” she said.

Robert peered at a spot between the legs. He smiled and looked at Sholtha. “Alsklinga, I think we have a boy!”

Sholtha smiled, too. Robert reached out and scritched his new son atop his little head. The baby let out a soft gurgling sound.

“I think he likes you,” said Hannah.

“My brother is half dinosaur!” said George. “This is so cool!”

“What do baby dromaesaurs eat?” asked Hannah.

“Eggs,” said Robert.

“I'll go get one,” said Hannah. She whirled around and trotted to the entry closet for her coat and boots.

“Don't forget the gauntlets,” Jill called.

“I won't!” Hannah replied on her way out through the service porch.

“I'll get a towel,” said George. He rushed off toward the linen closet.

Milly scooted closer and began to pick up bits of still-slimy egg shell.

Robert smiled. That his children volunteered thus reassured him that he and Jill...and Sholtha...had apparently been doing something right.

Moments later, George returned with a soft terry towel and handed it to Robert. He paused. “Didn't we used to lick them dry?”

Sholtha looked at him.

“You know, like cats?”

“No. Ghe did not do that.”

Robert grunted in acknowledgment, then carefully picked up his new son, gently toweled him dry, then tucked him into a crook in his arm, holding him so Sholtha could admire him too. With his free hand, he mopped up the leftover egg goo from the floor. George snatched the towel back and trotted off toward the laundry.

Hannah returned a minute later with several eggs—chicken, duck, and compy. Robert noticed she didn't even grumble about how fond the compies were of biting. The girl made a detour to the kitchen and emerged with a sturdy stoneware bowl before returning to the masonry stove.

While Hannah cracked eggs into the bowl and whisked them, Milly stoked the fire back to life. George picked up the turkey baster his sister had brought with the bowl and proceeded to fill it with the well-beaten egg. He extended the tip of the tool toward his new brother and squeezed.

Egg gushed out the end and into the baby's face. The hatchling spluttered and grunted.

“Oh, geez!” said George. “Sorry.” He cringed.

Robert reached over and patiently relieved his son of the baster. “It's okay.”

“Actually,” said Jill, “I'm surprised you didn't empty it. Those things are tricky.”

The little guy sneezed, then licked the egg off his own face. His tongue seemed unusually long and Robert wondered if it would stay that way as the boy grew. He also wondered if he'd have scales, hair, feathers, or maybe all three.

There were so many questions he had about a baby half human, half velociraptor, he didn't even know where to start. He was quite sure there were other questions he didn't even know to ask yet. And that was after already having been a father of three!

“Well,” said Jill, “he's cute...I guess.”

“He's beautiful!” said Robert.

“I agree,” said Sholtha.

“What's his name?” Hannah asked.

Robert shook his head. “I have no idea,” he said slowly.

A silence fell that seemed like it might go on forever, disturbed only by the baby's gurgly cooing. George finally broke it. “Draconatus,” he said.

All eyes looked toward him. “It's Latin,” he said. “It means 'Dragonborn.' I don't know if it's conjugated right. But his mom can pronounce it. And it follows Khantushakal naming convention for a boy.”

Robert smiled, a smile that spread to the rest of his family. “George my boy, I think that's a splendid idea. What do you think?” He posed the question to Sholtha.

The velociraptor considered that for a moment. “Yes,” she said. “It is a good name. He is ours.”

“And wonderful,” said Robert.

The children voiced wordless agreement.

“You know,” said Jill, “I guess he is.” Her smile broadened. “We should give Alexis...Asthriki...a call.” At Robert's raised eyebrow, she added, “Well, we need another addition to the family decal, don't we?”

Everyone responded with cheers and ululations. Everyone had apparently forgotten about the packages still sitting beneath the tree behind Sholtha. Robert was pretty sure it was turning out to be the best Christmas ever.

**Author's Note:**

> The novel mentions that Robert Muldoon had a family. So I decided to base it loosely on the late Rob Peck's real-life family.


End file.
